First Synergy Established: LandShift & NOSTRADAMUS!

One of the core parts of our project is to engage in synergies with other EU-funded projects working on the same/similar topic, in a complementary way.

However, a synergy is a term used very often in the field of Sustainability Science, and to avoid confusion, we refer to it as when two or more interventions’ combined generation results in progress in their activities that is greater than the sum of the individual impacts of each activity. This is inspired by Pedercini et al., 2019, “Harvesting Synergy from Sustainable Development Goals”, available here.

In the case of LandShift, our goal is to engage with other EU-funded projects and initiatives that are working on sustainable land management, nature-based solutions, or similar topics. Our goal is twofold: First, we wish to raise awareness of each other’s projects, inviting the audiences of one project to engage with the content of the other. This can be achieved through activities such as attending each other’s events, mentioning each other in newsletters, and so forth. The second step, however, is a lot more technical. We aim to explore the potential for the research and results of each project to contribute to the scientific advancements of the others. For too long, EU projects have been working in silos, even though we are all working towards the same goal: a more sustainable future.

There are strong interconnections within the EU Projects world, and our first step in engaging in synergies is to identify those EU projects and isolate which ones have the strongest connection, both in terms of a partnership connection as well as a topical one. We have identified a set of projects and have begun reaching out to them.

One of those projects is NOSTRADAMUS, Data Cube and Copernicus Data for Food Security and European Independence.

Coordinated by the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence (Cyprus), it is an innovative EU-funded project dedicated to advancing the sustainability and resilience of the agricultural sector in alignment with the Farm to Fork strategy, the Common Agricultural Policy, and the European strategy for data. By developing a robust, real-time digital platform, NOSTRADAMUS harnesses the power of Earth Observation, IoT, and advanced algorithms to optimize resource use, enhance yields, and promote sustainable farming practices.

The primary goal of NOSTRADAMUS is to safeguard EU Food Security and independence in agricultural inputs by creating a centralised Data Cube Ecosystem for real-time, aggregated, and accessible agricultural data, while also developing open-source digital applications to modernise and enhance the efficiency, resilience, and competitiveness of the EU agricultural sector. A key feature of the project includes two Open Calls, providing €400,000 in funding to innovative third-party projects that aim to enhance farm decision-making and develop digital tools for policy creation.

Last week, we had our first LandShift-NOSTRADAMUS meeting, where LandShift coordinators and dissemination leaders met with their counterparts of the NOSTRADAMUS project.

The meeting was very fruitful and very positive: the eagerness and drive for synergies was there.

Some of the topics discussed were:

Exchanging social media channels, following each other’s projects, and fostering engagement;
Feature each other’s projects on our respective websites;
Mention project advancements in each other’s newsletters;
Jointly participate in specialized or themed events, conferences, and panel discussions;
Organize and host joint webinars and workshops for mutual stakeholders;

The next steps are now to foster technical synergies between the two projects, where topical experts are able to come together to present, collaborate, and co-generate results.

For further information on NOSTRADAMUS, please take a look: