The European project GEN4OLIVE, of which Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía (CTA) is a partner, has published the results of its second call, in which 5 Andalusian SMEs will receive funding to develop 8 olive breeding plans and their validation activities. The selected companies will receive up to €10,000 for each approved project for the development of the planned activities over the next 12 months.

A total of 27 proposals were received, representing 8 countries targeted by the call. After the evaluation process, a total of 17 proposals were finally proposed for funding, requested by 12 different SMEs. The country with the highest rate of approval was Spain (11), followed by Albania (2), France (1), Italy (1), Georgia (1) and Turkey (1). These proposals will receive funding to develop individual projects with a total budget of €170,000. Thus, of the 17 fundable projects, more than half (8) will be implemented by Andalusian companies.

The funded projects are expected to improve multi-stakeholder collaboration and knowledge transfer between project partners, germplasm banks and the industrial fabric itself.

GEN4OLIVE is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union (EU) and coordinated by the University of Cordoba, in which CTA, the universities of Jaén and Granada and the companies BALAM Agriculture, Cámbrico Biotech and Santa Cruz Ingeniería, as Andalusian entities, also participate.

Selection of proposals

The call was addressed to SMEs established in EU Member States, H2020 partner countries or H2020 third countries interested in olive breeding activities, and end-users of the material available in the Germplasm Banks (i.e. breeders, farmers and olive oil or table olive producers).

The proposals received have been evaluated by the panel of independent expert evaluators selected for both GEN4OLIVE calls. Each of these experts has extensive experience in planning, operating and marketing strategies for international R&D&I projects.

First call for SMEs

In the 1st Call launched by this project in September 2021, 14 SMEs received funding to develop 2 individual and 6 collaborative projects, with a total budget of €700,000. Spain was the country with the largest number of beneficiary companies (7), followed by Italy (3), Greece (2) and Albania (2).

These 8 initiatives, which are still ongoing, are aimed at the recovery and revaluation of olive varieties, the development of a smart App for the evaluation and management of olive farms and the exploitation of olive varieties with high commercial potential, among others.

About GEN4OLIVE

The European project GEN4OLIVE is an Innovation Action funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Union (EU) to accelerate the use of olive genetic resources with the aim of solving the problems faced by the sector.