18 projects funded between 2021 and 2025 and five recommendations to strengthen the Euro-Mediterranean partnership on water, agriculture and food ahead of the FP10 framework programme.
Brussels, 16 July 2026 — TOUR4EU, the association bringing together the Tuscany Region and the seven Tuscan universities in Brussels, has responded to the European Commission’s call for evidence on the future of European Partnerships by submitting a Position Paper on PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area), the partnership established under Article 185 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The document gathers the perspective of the Tuscan universities involved in PRIMA and highlights the programme’s strategic value — unique in the European landscape for its focus on cooperation between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean on crucial issues: water scarcity, climate adaptation, the sustainability of agri-food systems, and the stability of the Mediterranean neighbourhood.
Between 2021 and 2025, Tuscan universities secured funding for 18 PRIMA projects — 7 as coordinators and 11 as partners in international consortia. The University of Florence took, the University of Pisa, the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and the University of Siena. Thematically, the projects span farming systems (9), the agri-food value chain (5) and water management (4), peaking at six projects in 2024.
In the Position Paper, TOUR4EU puts forward a set of recommendations to the Commission: maintain PRIMA under Article 185, preserving its co-programming model; strengthen the shift from generating knowledge to actually using it, with dedicated instruments for validation, demonstration and end-user engagement; introduce greater flexibility on project duration, extendable up to 48 months in duly justified cases; improve coordination and harmonise the timing of national funding; and consolidate the Living Labs, among the programme’s highest-impact instruments.
“Scientific research in the Mediterranean should no longer be interpreted as a one-way transfer of knowledge, but as a process of co-creation based on complementary expertise and shared objectives,” the document states, also underlining PRIMA’s role in European science diplomacy.
With this contribution, TOUR4EU confirms its role as an institutional liaison in Brussels for the Tuscan university system and reaffirms Tuscany’s vocation as a regional ecosystem capable of connecting scientific excellence, applied innovation and Mediterranean cooperation.
