Belmont Forum and FACCE-JPI International Opportunities Fund In July 2013 a joint funding Call of approximately €10·5m was launched between the Belmont Forum and the Agriculture, Food Security & Climate Change Joint Programming Initiative (FACCE-JPI), aimed at supporting excellent research on the theme of Food Security and Land-use Change. The UK contribution is supported jointly by BBSRC, ESRC and NERC to the value of €1·75m. NSF contribution is c €1m. The closing date is 30 th September 2013 (6 weeks!)

European initiative which gathers 21 countries to align national programs on agriculture, food security and climate change. FACCE-JPI has developed a Strategic Research Agenda with strategic priorities for trans- disciplinary and innovative European research. It provides a framework for the alignment of existing national programs and joint research efforts to achieve the twin objectives of food security and combating climate change.

FACCE-JPI Strategic Research Agenda 5 core research themes reflecting key challenges to be tackled: 1.Sustainable food security under climate change 2.Environmentally sustainable growth and intensification of agriculture 3.Trade-offs between food supply, biodiversity, ecosystem services 4.Adaptation to Climate Change 5.Mitigation of Climate Change. Aims to reinforce infrastructures and platforms, training and capacity building in Europe and knowledge exchange.

Two types of project Type 1. Community building projects (12 to 18 months, for up to €300k). Short-term exploratory projects to build communities that bring on board various disciplines and stakeholder groups around a common object of research. The focus should be on networking, capacity building, co-design of research questions and co-building of methodologies for integrated research, spatial scale interaction analysis, knowledge appropriation by key users, etc. Type 2. Medium to long-term integrated projects (3 to 5 years, up to €3m) - Pre-proposal phase. These projects will seek to address the key research questions in an integrated manner, with emphasis on a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach in co-design and co- implementation. Proposals should seek to enhance fundamental understanding of the complex interactions between and within natural and human systems specifically in relation to food security and land use. The proposals must include stakeholder involvement from the outset and must have a clear plan for how the results would be used. The application process for Type 2 projects is a two-stage process. This announcement is for pre-proposals. Call is expected to support up to 15 Type 1 projects and 3 Type 2 projects

Consortia Funding will support researchers to cooperate in consortia consisting of partners from at least three of the participating Belmont Forum / FACCE-JPI countries, which must bring together trans-disciplinary teams with multi- stakeholder participation (policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry); Proposals must integrate natural and social systems and must examine a variety of coupled interactions and feedbacks among relevant systems. BBSRC, ESRC and NERC, under the auspices of the UK's Global Food Security Programme, expect to support UK participation in a total of approximately 5-8 projects across both project types.

Belmont FACCE JPI The countries involved in this initiative include Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, France, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Romania, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Possibilities for collaboration for non- participatory countries and developing countries exist.

Working together International Opportunities Fund aims to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions. Funding should support researchers to cooperate in consortia consisting of partners from at least 3 participating countries. Moreover, so as to benefit from the additional geographic breadth brought by the link between the Belmont Forum and European FACCE-JPI, all proposals including FACCE-JPI countries should also include at least one Belmont Forum country which is not a member country of FACCE-JPI Consortia must bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry).

Important dates OPENING CALL: 17 th July 2013 CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSION:30 th September 2013 Full Proposal (Type 1) & Pre-proposals (Type 2): NOTIFICATION SUBMISSION of Full Proposals (Type 2): November 2013 CLOSING DATE SUBMISSION of Full Proposals (Type 2): February 2014

With a focus on food security, Call emphasises three fundamental topics Topic 1: Land use change impacts on food systems Topic 2: Food systems dynamics as driver of land use changes Topic 3: Feedback loop interactions between land use change and food security dynamics

Land cover monitoring Changes in land cover (extensification - forest to grassland) Changes in land use intensity (intensification - single to multiple cropping); Changes in type of land use (switching from food crops to energy cropping; rainfed to irrigated

Key questions to consider? Do we go for a Type I or Type II project? What should the focus of our project be? Croplands is a strength, but we need to broaden it to include ecosystem services to align with Call Region/countries of focus? Where do we have good potential linking with strong partners and case studies etc

Integrating our skills Crop science /agricultural systems Remote sensing, EO and GIS Water resources and hydrology Socio economics Climate change science – impacts/adaptation

Topic 1: Developing an integrate assessment methodology to assess land use change impacts on food systems – a project idea The Call focuses on one aspect of food security: the two-way interactions between the dynamics of food systems and land use change, including the implications of the change on biodiversity and ecosystem services. One option would be to extend and modify an existing metamodel tool, to incorporate land use changes, remote sensing etc and apply in different case studies to assess impacts of land use change on various ecosystem services

Integrated Assessment tool examples Dr. Ian Holman Holman Ian P, Rounsevell M D A, Berry P M & Nicholls R J. (2008) Development and application of participatory integrated assessment software to support local/regional impact and adaptation assessment, Climatic Change, Development and application of participatory integrated assessment software to support local/regional impact and adaptation assessment