Two new networks are granted funding after the latest NKJ call in soil health and agroecology connected to living labs and calls in Horizon Europe.
The deadline for application was April 1st. The NKJ board decided, at its latest meeting in May, to fund two new networks: CoverCropsNordic and TerraNordica.
The focus areas of the call was soil health and agroecology connected to living labs and calls in Horizon Europe. The aim of the call was to promote Nordic collaboration between researchers from agricultural and food sectors by networking activities. Transdisciplinary networks between researchers and stakeholders was especially encouraged.
CoverCropsNordic will work to improve the understanding of the effects of cover crops on greenhouse gas balances, particularly under humid and temperate conditions of Northern Europe. The participants see a great interest among farmers for adopting cover crops in the crop rotation, but also an urgent need to exchange experiences about how to avoid the risk of draw-backs by using appropriate species and management. The network will focus on soil health and agroecology by using cover cropping.
NKJ is looking forward to the outcomes of this much needed initiative!
TerraNordica aims to provide guidelines on how agroecological management systems can be analysed on their effects on soil health by identifying a set of robust indicators. The network will contribute to structure and support a network of living labs and research infrastructures that will accelerate the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe.
“The significance of the work proposed in TerraNordica lies in improved understanding of the interaction between agroecological management systems and soil health” wrote the applicants in their application.
NKJ will follow the work with great interest!
NKJ will report on the activities in these new researcher networks in our newsletter and in our social medias:
Nordic food has achieved new milestones: four projects were granted funding in the New Nordic Food latest call.
1 Food as a pedagogical tool is a project addressing the challenge of sustainable eating habits as it is strongly connected to climate change, biodiversity loss, resilience of Nordic communities, low food self-sufficiency and loss of traditional knowledge. It also address teachers need of relevant and updated educational material and methods on sustainable food production and consumption.
This will be achieved by gathering, co-creating with pupils and testing food education models for schools (pupils ages 12-16) were school meals, food and route of food function as a practical pedagogical tool.
The project is a part of the bigger project Food education for future (FeFF), which aims to increase teachers’ and municipal employees’ knowledge of sustainable food and how an increased degree of self-sufficiency of food can be an adaptation to counteract climate change and support resilience in Nordic areas.
2 Building a New Nordic Food and sustainability program is a program with the long-term objectives to ensure an increased focus on sustainability and New Nordic Food within UWC Red Cross Nordic as a showcase for other similar schools and actors. The three primary short-term objectives of the project are to
1) Change the culinary profile of the school food into a Nordic Food and sustainable profile
2) Increase students’ knowledge and capacity regarding local foods and sustainability
3) Bring the knowledge from the project into humanitarian work with young people attending Red Cross ‘summer camps’ and students from ‘lejrskoler’ located at the UWC RCN campus.
3 Ungdommens Madmøde is a part of the bigger project Madens Folkemøde, which is a recurring event regarding food and food systems including among other things, master classes, workshops and food experiences. Now it is wanted to also include the children and youth in the event and this is to be done by the project Ungdommens Madmøde.
The hope is to create a platform for experts, teachers and institutions who are working with healthy, sustainable and locally produced food to children in the Nordic countries and at the same time involve children in the activities of the event. The objectives of the project are to
1) Create a Nordic Youth Food Meeting that practices the natural and culinary community that is Nordic food. And thereby show how positive experiences can involvechildren in a sustainable, Nordic food culture.
2) Create a – preferably an annually recurring – Nordic symposium to develop food experiences for children and how food for children is part of the major social challenges.
3) Increase public interest in the societal goals that can be achieved by working with prevalence and quality and Nordic ideals in public meals for children.
4 Seminar på Røros (Norge) om «terroir» og lokale smaker knyttet til nordiske melkeprodukter is a project which aims to create a Nordic arena for the exchange of expertise and knowledge between the professional community, business, educational institutions and future farmers and employees in the industry.
This is done by arranging a seminar at the dairy Rørosmeieriet. Rørosmeieriet is the largest dairy in Norway which produces organic milk and milk products and the place where it is located, Røros, is an important area for locally produced food and food products.
This open call is an opportunity to strengthen networking at a strategic level among central Nordic institutions. We want to gather the forces in the Nordic food culture movement with a focus on children and young people!
Collaborations and projects that meet the goals and criteria are welcome to apply, however, there is a particularly interest for applications in the following areas: • Public food, such as school food • Sustainable development and communication about Nordic food culture and Nordic diet • Sustainable meal tourism with a special focus on meals for children/young people
Application deadline: 30.09.2022 at 23.59 CEST
Max funding: 500.000 DKK/project
With this call, the steering group for New Nordic Food wishes to support projects and activities that fall within the framework of the Kitchen Manifesto and the current Nordic Nutrition Recommendations with sustainability as the overarching theme.
The project must support and promote sustainable eating habits, and the focus can be, for example, the promotion of locally produced and organic food, gastronomic values, foreign food culture and traditional dishes/products or reducing food waste. The project can identify and test or disseminate best practices to promote interest in sustainable eating habits.
The target group of the project must be children and young people between 12-20 years, e.g. at institutions such as schools, high schools, boarding schools, folk high schools, food schools, vocational schools or similar in the Nordic countries.
Researchers in agriculture and the food industry can now apply for funding for networking activities aimed at increasing the sectors’ sustainability, resilience and competitiveness.
Deadline for application submission is April 21th, 2022.
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With this funding opportunity, NKJ wants to interlink researchers in the Nordic region to find solutions on how to sustainably transform the food system.
That transformation is a powerful tool to reach the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). We need to change the way we produce, consume and think about food; a new food narrative that acknowledges systems issues in agriculture – from broken nutrient cycles to biodiversity loss, erosion, fossil fuel dependence and CO2 emissions – interlinked issues that could in part be solved at the regional level.
NKJ encourages networks that relate to aspects of transformation and transition in agriculture and the food system at large to apply for funding. The focus could be either on farms or focusing anywhere from the downstream refinement of agricultural products to upstream innovations and production flows needed to increase primary agricultural production in the Nordic region. The goal is to encourage activities directed to novel tools and improve current production to increase resilience, sustainability and competitiveness of agriculture in the Nordic region.
Call conditions Networks should include applicants from research institutions from at least three different countries in the Nordic region.
Each gender must be represented by a minimum of 40% of the participants in the network.
PhD students and young researchers should be included in the network.
Network grants are for two years of activities from August 2022 to July 2024.
Stakeholders are encouraged to participate but cannot be main applicants.
Economic framework The amount applied for from NKJ can be maximum 300.000 SEK. The funding should primarily be spent on costs for arranging scientific meetings, workshops and conferences including accommodation, travel and conference fees but could also cover costs for designing policy recommendations based on research findings, write large-scale research funding applications, creating or maintaining databases or websites (excluding hardware) and communication activities.
Networks are expected to co-finance at least 50% of the total budget.
Forskare inom jordbruk och livsmedelsindustri kan nu söka medel för nätverksaktiviteter som syftar till att öka sektorernas hållbarhet, motståndskraft och konkurrenskraft.
Sista dag för ansökan är 21 April 2022.
Med denna utlysning vill NKJ länka samman nordiska forskare för att hitta ett hållbart sätt att omvandla livsmedelssystemet.
Den omvandlingen är ett kraftfullt verktyg för att nå de 17 globala hållbarhetsmålen. Vi måste förändra vårt sätt att producera, konsumera och tänka på mat; ett nytt matbegrepp som tar hänsyn till de systemproblem som finns inom jordbruket: från brutna näringskretslopp till förlust av biologisk mångfald, erosion, beroende av fossila bränslen och CO2-utsläpp – frågor som hänger ihop och som delvis skulle kunna lösas på regional nivå.
NKJ uppmuntrar nätverk som relaterar till olika aspekter av omvandling och omställning av jordbruket och livsmedelssystemet i stort att skicka in sin ansökan. Fokus kan vara antingen på gårdsnivå eller valfri nivå i kedjan från förädling av jordbruksprodukter, till innovationer och produktionsflöden som behövs för att öka den primära jordbruksproduktionen i Norden.
NKJ vill uppmuntra aktiviteter som syftar till att åstadkomma nya verktyg och förbättra nuvarande produktion för att öka motståndskraften, hållbarheten och konkurrenskraften för jordbruket i Norden.
Krav
Nätverk ska ha sökande från forskningsinstitutioner i minst tre olika nordiska länder.
Vardera könen ska vara representerade av minst 40% av nätverkets medlemmar.
PhD-studenter och unga forskare ska vara aktiva i nätverket.
Finansiering ges för aktiviteter från augusti 2022 till juli 2024.
Intressenter utanför forskarvärlden uppmuntras att delta i nätverken men kan inte vara huvudsökande.
Ekonomiska ramar
Finansieringen från NKJ uppgår som mest till 300 000 SEK. Finansieringen ska främst gå till att arrangera vetenskapliga möten, workshops och konferenser inkluderande boende, resor och konferensavgifter men kan också användas för att utforma policy.rekommendationer baserade på forskningsrön, skriva större ansökningar om forskningsmedel, skapa databaser och hemsidor och kommunikationsinsatser.
According to a study from Stanford University in 2017, 39% of all couples found their partners on the internet, and only 20% “through friends”. What works for people who search for love should also work for those looking for a research collaborator. And in an ongoing pandemic, the internet is more or less the only way of finding that partner. It was therefore natural for SNS and NKJ to make the 2020 Matchmaking Day digital.
Text and photo: Mats Hannerz, Silvinformation
Malin von Essen was facilitating our first matchmaking day online. It all ended really well and was promising for future online events.
Matchmaking Day is a forum where SNS (Nordic Forest Research) and NKJ (Nordic Joint Committee for Agricultural and Food Research) invite researchers and stakeholders from a broad spectrum of disciplines to identify possible partners and ideas for cooperation. The forum, which has been held almost annually since 2015, was switched this year to a digital platform instead of the usual mingling in person.
Focus on reindeer husbandry
The theme of the Matchmaking Day on August 25 was Reindeer husbandry in the arctic bioeconomy. The original intention was to gather potential delegates at a meeting in Inari, Finland in May 2020. But – the corona epidemic made it impossible.
– We talked a lot about a plan B, says SNS’ secretary Mimmi Blomquist, but we soon realised that the pandemic would continue for a long time, so simply postponing the physical meeting was not an option.
Instead, the meeting was held digitally, led by the facilitator Malin von Essen. Altogether 48 people were present for the full-day event.
Digital possibilities
The meeting was conducted using the Zoom platform, one of several online meeting tools. Skype, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other services have seen an explosion in users since the pandemic forced people to work from home and avoid travelling. In just the first week from 11-18 March, Teams attracted 12 million new users, and Zoom use increased by 169% during the first months of the year.
– There are hundreds of thousands of people who are now learning how to use video conferencing services in an effective way. The changes we have been talking about for 20 years have now been implemented at record speed, says Malin von Essen.
A new reality
In her business, she moderates and organises meetings and workshops with the aim of inspiring people and taking the results back to their organisations. The meetings are normally physical, but in 2020 she had to rethink the situation.
– We carried out several digital workshops during the spring, and we have learnt a lot about the technique and how to use the potential of the services to engage participants, she says.
The Matchmaking Day was organised as a traditional meeting with lectures, but also with several shorter workshops in smaller groups. The digital platform Zoom facilitates flexible group meetings. In “break-out rooms”, participants with a common research interest could discuss cooperation in a group size allowing more intimate discussions, and the results could be presented later to the entire audience.
– Since we have chat functions and can also assemble suggestions using the menti.com tool, everyone can make their voice heard. And afterwards, other people can look at the recorded presentations and the results of the discussions, all being posted on the SNS’ website.
Content with the outcome
Mimmi Blomquist at SNS was impressed with how well the meeting worked out.
– Of course, we need to meet in person, but this is definitely an option that our research networks could use for many of their workshops. SNS and NKJ provide financial support to research networks with partners from all the Nordic countries, and also neighbouring countries. So, partners are often located thousands of kilometres apart, and we can save lots of travel costs and reduce climate impact by using these digital services, she says.
Advices for your coming digital meetings
It is easy to start a video conference, and most researchers and business people are already used to them, but to make the meetings effective, Malin von Essen has some advice:
Be clear about your aim and goal – why is the meeting needed and what output do you expect? Then start to think of the content.
Before the meeting is live, become familiar with all the functions in the digital platform. Conduct a test meeting with some friends.
Ensure that the meeting will function technically. Not all participants are equally comfortable, encourage them to test the technique in advance. Tell the participants to use a headset and web camera, and to avoid distracting surroundings or strong backlight.
Schedule breaks in the programme. It is better to have several short breaks than one long one.
Nordic funding opportunities in reindeer research:
The Nordic Committee for Agricultural and Food Research (NKJ) and Nordic Forest Research (SNS) is calling for networks that will strengthen co-operation in reindeer husbandry research in the Nordic region. The applicant must be a researcher or communicator at a research institution. The network must include researchers from at least three Nordic countries.
SNS is calling for networks exploring forests and forestry in relation to reindeer husbandry. The application deadline is September 21, 2020. Apply for SNS networks here!
NKJ prioritises networks focusing on reindeer husbandry in relation to climate change and land-use change, but networks that focus on other aspects of reindeer husbandry are also encouraged to apply. The application deadline is November 20, 2020. Apply NKJ networks here!
SEE THE PRESENTATIONS:
Morten Tryland, professor in veterinary medicine, infection biology at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø
After a period of clinical veterinary practice, he transitioned to research and has spent most of his research career investigating infectious diseases in arctic wildlife and semi-domesticated reindeer, in close cooperation with Fennoscandian research groups and reindeer herders.
Morten told us about reindeer health and supplementary feeding, which is a quite complex issue.
In Sweden, only a person who is member of a reindeer herding community (Sameby) has reindeer herding rights. An exception is the Concession area in western Sweden (Torne valley), where other locals can own reindeer, but Sámi people manage them.
Norway has similar rules, and only Sámi with rights to a reindeer earmark can conduct reindeer husbandry. In southern Norway, there is a Concession area with a limited number of reindeer, where both Sámi and non-Sámi are engaged in reindeer husbandry.
In Finland, anyone who is a Finnish citizen can own reindeer, but must be accepted as a member of a reindeer herding district. In the northernmost herding area (Sámi), almost all owners belong to the Sámi people. The maximum number of animals that can be owned by an individual in Finland is 300 in the southern region and 500 in the northern parts of the reindeer herding area.
SWEDEN has 51 reindeer herding communities (Sameby) with about 4 700 reindeer owners.
NORWAY has 556 Siida units with 2 900 people as members. Of these 2 200 are in Finnmark, the northernmost county in Norway.
FINLAND has 56 reindeer herding districts with about 6 700 reindeer owners. For most of them reindeer herding is a secondary occupation , besides farming, forestry etc. Fulltime herders number about 800, of whom 600 are Sámis.
Number of reindeer
The numbers reflect the winter herds, after slaughter but before the calves are born.
SWEDEN has a relatively stable population around 250.000 reindeer.
NORWAY has slightly more than 200.000 reindeer. In addition, a population of wild reindeer (the last population in Fennoscandia besides a newly established in southern Finland) lives in southern Norway (about 30.000 reindeer).
FINLAND has about 200.000 reindeer and a small population of wild reindeer south of the reindeer herding area.
NKJ will fund activities 2020-2021 related to antibiotic resistance. The focus is on how low or no utilization of antibiotics can give positive effects on animals, food and environment.
The increased use of antimicrobial medicines in both human and animal healthcare has contributed to an increase in the number of disease-causing microbes that are resistant to antimicrobial medicines used to treat them, like antibiotics. This makes antibiotic resistance a growing threat that could lead to as many as 10 million deaths a year and over €85 million in losses to the global economy by 2050.
In the Nordic Region, we are experienced in keeping the use of antibiotics in agriculture at a low and responsible level because we know that their use can result in the development of resistant bacteria. Yet the problem of resistance is international, and this is why we would like to share our experiences so as to tackle the problem internationally.
For the use of less antibiotics
This call has a special interest in funding activities related to antibiotic resistance. The focus is on how low or no use of antibiotics can contribute to improved animal health, food security, sustainable management of biological resources, increased competitiveness, resilience and reduced climate impact from primary production and diversified rural economics.
With this call NKJ wants to increase North European regional synergy within agriculture and food research, strengthen and establish better contact between the agriculture and food research communities in the Nordic countries. We also wants to encourage Nordic researchers and institutions to apply for funding from larger funds.
Funding for two years
You can submit your application latest September 30th.
You can apply for maximum 400 000 SEK per network for two years. You need to have external funding of at minimum 50 %. We encourage young researchers and PhD’s to participate in the networks, and we strive for gender balance.
In the end of 2019 the applicants will have an answer from us.
NKJ (Nordic Joint Committee for Agricultural and Food Research) makes a call for researcher networks, especially those working with digitization of agriculture.
The focus of the call is on how utilization of digitization can contribute to sustainable management of biological resources, increased competitiveness and reduced climate impact from primary production, but networks can be funded without this focus.
Sweden will lead the work of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2018. Based on the possibilities of digitization, the Swedish precidency for the agricultural sector will focus on sustainable management of biological resources, increased competitiveness, resilience and reduced climate impact from primary production and diversified rural economics. How can utilization of digitization contribute to increased degree of innovation, more efficient use of biomass and a more resource-efficient agricultural sector?
The network has to have participants from at least three Nordic countries and the main applicant need to be a researcher or communicator at a research institute or research organization. It has to self-finance the activities to an extent of 50%.
Applications must be submitted no later than 12:00 CET on February 28th 2018.
If you are working in Sweden with science, technical development or enterprise in natural resources and biodiversity, you can propose someone to get a scholarship from Carl XVI Gustafs foundation for science, technic and environment.
Konung Carl XVI Gustafs 50-årsfond för vetenskap, teknik och miljö promotes research and enterprising that contributes to sustainable use of the natural resources and conservation of the biodiversity. You can propose individuals, institutions and companies in Sweden. The scholarship is not meant for already well established researchers.
Five or six scholarships of each 85 000-100 000 SEK are granted.
increase North European regional synergy within agriculture and food research
establish better contact between the agriculture and food research communities in the Nordic countries
strengthen North European agriculture and food research(*) and networking.
Special scope for this call
This call has a special interest in funding networks that aim to through networking among Nordic researchers and institutions, apply for funding from larger funds like e.g. Horizon 2020 or similar activities.
The deadline for application was April 1st. The NKJ board decided, at its latest meeting in May, to fund two new networks: CoverCropsNordic and TerraNordica.
Nordic food has achieved new milestones: four projects were granted funding in the New Nordic Food latest call.
The focus of the call is on how utilization of digitization can contribute to sustainable management of biological resources, increased competitiveness and reduced climate impact from primary production, but networks can be funded without this focus.