NWO publishes call Smart solutions for horti- and agriculture

NWO has published the call Smart solutions for horti- and agriculture. Deadlines for submitting proposals is April 9, 2019. The budget available is up to € 4 million. Funding is up to € 800,000. A consortium of researchers and private partners may apply for funding for research that provides new, smart solutions that lead to sustainable and circular agricultural systems, while, at the same time, securing a healthy livelihood for farmers and agriculture-related companies.

Application of high-tech systems and materials and the new possibilities of ICT will allow the agricultural sectors to better address the societal challenges they face.

With the programme, NWO is encouraging new basic, application-oriented and precompetitive scientific research projects. By doing so, NWO wants to strengthen the knowledge base and encourage interdisciplinary research that leads to the application of knowledge within and between the top sectors Agri&Food, Horticulture & Propagation Materials, High Tech Systems and Materials and ICT. This programme is connected to the High Tech to feed the World vision document. 'Smart Solutions for horti- and agriculture' focuses on four research challenges:

• Sensor sytems;
• Data handling and analytics;
• Modelling, control and decision support;
• Actuation and robotics.

The call is a cross-domain collaboration between the NWO domain Science (ENW) and the NWO domain Applied and Engineering Sciences (TTW). The applications will be processed by the domain Science in collaboration with the domain Applied and Engineering Sciences.

In February 2019 NWO organises a matchmakingevent. Information will soon be available.