Exploring the potential of controlled environment agriculture (CEA)
HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-08
€6.0M - €6.0M
16/09/2025
Non-profit, Private Business, Research Institution, Public Institution
Trusted by
What is the Exploring the potential of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) Call?
Expected Outcomes
• Support Common Agricultural Policy objectives, the European Green Deal, and the EU Climate Law by advancing resilient and sustainable agri-food systems
• Enable farmers and primary sector actors to operate sustainable, efficient, profitable, circular and low-emission farming systems aimed at climate neutrality and resilience
• Generate new knowledge, innovations and scalable models for controlled environment farming to make agriculture an attractive and remunerative profession
• Deliver a holistic understanding of CEA: technological requirements, trade-offs, policy implications, and societal and environmental impacts
• Advance the economic, environmental and social sustainability evidence base for CEA (profitability, energy efficiency, GHG, circularity, social dimension)
• Identify and validate novel and diverse crop varieties suited to CEA and explore next-generation system designs
• Enhance adoption, expansion and replication of CEA best practices across Europe and beyond
Scope Requirements
• Focus on CEA systems that precisely control environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, CO₂, light, nutrients)
• Include examples such as greenhouses, vertical farms, grow rooms, building-integrated farming, hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics
• Assess and benchmark the effectiveness of current CEA solutions and resource use
• Provide a socio-economic analysis of CEA implementation at various scales, including profitability and market viability
• Quantify environmental impacts and life-cycle footprint in line with Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279
• Map the state of crop diversity in CEA, propose novel varieties, and address testing/adoption challenges
• Deliver forward-looking insights on CEA trends, emerging technologies, and future implications for farmers and the agri-food sector
• Identify key technical, economic, social and regulatory challenges and propose actionable strategies to overcome them
• Ensure essential involvement of SMEs and allocate no more than 30% of EU funding to third-party grants for SME testing or validation
• Build on existing research findings, tools and platforms developed under previous EU and international projects
Special Conditions
• Proposals may include financial support to third parties (SMEs) only in the form of grants, capped at €60,000 per third party and 30% of the project’s EU contribution
• Involvement of SMEs is mandatory for topic eligibility
• Applicants must adhere to Horizon Europe General Annexes for admissibility, eligibility, evaluation, and grant management
• Environmental impact assessments must follow the Environmental Footprint methods (Commission Recommendation EU 2021/2279)
• Proposals should select and address the most relevant Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment destination from the 2025 Work Programme
Open from: 06/05/2025
Deadline:16/09/2025
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