EU Policies and Instruments to Support the Agri-food Sector

This chapter focuses on EU policies and instruments in support of R&I activities in agri-food and provides an overview of various EU financial frameworks, funds, programmes and supported initiatives. Financial and technical support discussed in this chapter includes: (a) direct support through competitive funds such as Horizon 2020 and COSME, (b) indirect support through European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI funds), and (c) “access to finance” tools usually consist of loans, equity financing, venture capital and guarantees provided by financial intermediaries. Finally, the chapter provides for a comparison of the Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food with other platforms, partnerships and initiatives currently promoted by the European Commission at EU level such as European Innovation Partnership (EIP), European Technology Platforms (ETP), European Institute of Technology Knowledge Innovation Communities (EIT KICs) and Food Cluster Initiative. The objective is to discuss possible complementarities among the EU Platforms.