The PRIMA 2023 – Section 2 call for proposals has been recently published within the Horizon 2020 European Union Framework Programme, which includes funding in the thematic areas of water management, sustainable farming systems and development of the value chain of agri-food products.
The call for proposals is promoted by the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area(PRIMA): an initiative joined by eleven EU Member States – Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain – three countries associated to Horizon 2020 – Israel, Turkey and Tunisia – and five Mediterranean Partner countries, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Jordan.
The setting up of this partnership has allowed the nineteen countries to develop a common strategy in research and innovation to address the challenges in climate change, population growth and food security together. In particular, PRIMA supports actions aimed at having an impact on water scarcity or overexploitation of natural resources, and sustainable agriculture, agro-biodiversity loss as well as reinforcing Mediterranean lifestyle through diet, physical activity, socio-cultural, Mediterranean agro-food value chains.
Part of the financial resources have been allocated by the European Commission, and part by the countries participating in the programme. For this call, the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) has made available an overall budget of 6.8 million euros as a non-refundable grant. Of these, at least 1.8 million euros are primarily dedicated to projects in which the leader of the Italian partners is a young researcher under the age of 40.
This is a two-step selection: project pre-proposals shall be submitted by 29 March 2023, while consortia that will pass the first assessment will be invited by the PRIMA Call Secretariat to submit their full proposals by 13 September 2023.
The rules and admissibility criteria for Italian applicants are reported in the Avviso integrativo nazionale, detailed information on the call topics and application procedure is available on the dedicated webpage.
