Home > Press Releases > Press Release #1077 > Appendix 3
Appendix 3

Overview of the Belmont Forum 2013 CRA (Collaborative Research Action)
“Food Security and Land Use Change” and its Evaluation

1. Aims of the joint call

With the increase of the global population the issue of food security is an urgent one and the negative impact on the environment caused by the expansion of food production, such as emissions of greenhouse gases or degradation of soil and water quality, become problems in their own right. Moreover, these issues are further compounded by the appearance of new problems, such as competition from the production of fuel crops. In order to support rapid strategy or policy formulation for the creation of innovation and balancing of food security and sustainable land use in this field, the new creation and deepening of the global–level knowledge base are essential. The aim of this joint call is to support international collaboration in order to understand the holistic interaction between land use change and the dynamics of food security.

2. Target research field

“Food Security and Land Use Change”
The focus is on the following three topics:

3. Participating countries

Australia, Brazil, France, India, Japan, South Africa, U.K., U.S.A., FACCE-JPI* member countries (Cyprus, France, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland, U.K.)

* The Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change

4. Eligibility

The following were eligible to receive support through this call:

5. Research Period

Type1: 12 to 18 months
Type2: 3 to 5 years

6. Amount of Funding (including indirect costs)

Type1: Approximately fifteen million JPY in total throughout the research period
Type2: Approximately fifteen million JPY per year per project

7. Funded Expenses

Funding is provided in support of research and research exchange activities.
Research exchange expenses include travel expenses and costs for holding symposia/seminars, and research expenses include costs such as for the provision of facilities, equipment and consumables that are necessary for the collaboration.
Indirect costs may be also claimed though they should be no more than 10 percent of direct costs.

8. Evaluation Process

Evaluation of proposals was conducted by an international Panel of Experts nominated by the Belmont Forum member organizations taking part in this joint call. The participating funding organizations then met to discuss the outcome of that evaluation and jointly decided on the projects to select for funding.

9. Evaluation Criteria

The following Belmont Forum CRA general criteria were applied in evaluation of each proposal:

(1) Quality/Intellectual Merit

(2) User Engagement and Societal/Broader Impacts

(3) Inter-Disciplinarity and Personnel/Quality of the Consortium

(4) Resources and Management


JST, an integrated organization of science and technology in Japan, establishes an infrastructure for the entire process from the creation of knowledge to the return to the society. For more information, visit http://www.jst.go.jp/EN/