Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung

Their core work

BLE is Germany's federal agency for agriculture and food, acting as a national programme manager and funding body that coordinates transnational research across Europe. In H2020, BLE serves as the German node in ERA-NET cofund actions, pooling national research budgets with other countries to fund joint calls on food systems, sustainable agriculture, climate adaptation, and biodiversity. Their role is not as a research performer but as a programme-level coordinator — aligning national research agendas, managing call processes, and ensuring that funded projects deliver cross-border impact in agriculture and food security.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early H2020 period (2015–2017), BLE focused heavily on building strategic research agendas and aligning national programmes around food security, resource efficiency, and JPI implementation — essentially the architecture of European agricultural research cooperation. From 2018 onward, the focus shifted toward climate-food nexus topics (climate change adaptation, biodiversity loss, soil health) and began incorporating digital agriculture and blue bioeconomy. The trajectory shows a move from broad coordination of existing agendas toward more targeted, problem-driven themes where agriculture meets environmental crisis.

BLE is moving from pure programme coordination toward shaping EU mission-level priorities, particularly in soil health and climate-resilient food systems — expect them at the centre of Horizon Europe mission calls.

How they like to work

BLE overwhelmingly operates as a participant (19 of 22 projects), reflecting its role as a national funding body that joins ERA-NET consortia rather than leading research. However, its 3 coordinator roles (SusAn, ICT-AGRI-FOOD, SMS) reveal strategic leadership on topics where Germany wants to set the agenda. With 206 unique partners across 56 countries, BLE functions as a high-connectivity hub — a gateway to German agricultural research funding and policy networks.

BLE has worked with 206 distinct partners across 56 countries, making it one of the most broadly connected agricultural bodies in H2020. The network spans well beyond Europe into Africa (LEAP-AGRI, FOSC) and the Americas, reflecting its role in EU-AU and intercontinental food security partnerships.

What sets them apart

BLE is not a research institute — it is the German government's instrument for channelling national agricultural research funding into European joint programmes. Partnering with BLE gives you access to German co-funding mechanisms and a direct line to national policy priorities in agriculture and food. For consortium builders, BLE brings institutional weight, programme management experience across 16 ERA-NETs, and connections to the German ministry landscape that no university or research centre can replicate.

Highlights from their portfolio

• LEAP-AGRI
  Largest single budget (EUR 1.04M) — a flagship EU-Africa partnership on food security and sustainable agriculture spanning 7 years.
• SMS
  Coordinated by BLE in 2020, this Soil Mission Support action directly shaped the EU's Horizon Europe Mission on Soil Health, positioning BLE at the policy frontier.
• ICT-AGRI-FOOD
  Coordinated by BLE, this ERA-NET marks their entry into digital agriculture — smart farming, big data, and farm-to-fork ICT systems.