Research coordination

The objective is to:

• help to ensure that research is of high quality and of great relevance to different audiences
• promote collaboration and interdisciplinarity though coordination of research
• contribute to increased international collaboration

Swedish research on organic food and farming in the past more than years was largely financed with directed calls from the research council Formas, the Swedish Board of Agriculture and SLU Ekoforsk at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Furthermore, the Swedish Farmers’ Foundation for Agricultural Research as well as Ekhaga Foundation is funding research and development relevant for organic farming.

To facilitate funders priorities Epok coordinates the production of a single document with the main future challenges and knowledge needs of the organic food chain towards greater sustainability, efficiency, and environmental and social benefits. The current document is called Research Agenda for Organic Food and Farming (2022).

International cooperation is vital to enhance the quality of research. CORE Organic was a so-called ERA-Net project where a number of EU countries is announcing and co-funding transnational research projects. Formas has been the Swedish partner in CORE Organic. Since ERA-Nets are no longer supported in Horizon Europe (the new EU framework for research and innovation), CORE Organic is continuing in CORE Organic Pleiades Network, where Epok is a stakeholder partner.

Epok is collecting and publishing short descriptions of ongoing and finished Swedish research projects at the web portal Ekofakta.se.

Epok is a so called national platform for TP Organics, which is a common European platform for research and innovation in organic agriculture food and farming.

Epok is working for increased Nordic cooperation, and collaborates with research organizations in neighboring countries

In the international database Organic E-prints You can find publications and information about research projects and programs.