Research Projects

Agriculture is expected to play an increasingly important role in restoring biodiversity and ecosystems, protecting water and soils, and strengthening climate resilience. Achieving these benefits requires changes in land management, investment, knowledge and collaboration. Farmers therefore need payment mechanisms that adequately reward the environmental services they provide to society. Public support for agricultural environmental measures often depends on prescribed management practices, which can limit farmers’ flexibility in achieving environmental objectives. Furthermore, opportunities to integrate different funding sources, such as private and public funding within existing policy frameworks, remain insufficiently explored

Innovative approaches can link environmental outcomes more directly to farmers’ income, but successful examples in Europe remain scarce. Results-based payment schemes reward achieved outcomes rather than specific practices, allowing farmers greater flexibility in how they deliver environmental benefits. Collective and spatially coordinated approaches can further enhance impact by encouraging collaboration across farms and landscapes. The challenge is to expand these approaches beyond pilot projects and favourable local conditions.

The four-year Horizon Europe project REWARD aims to develop, implement and scale innovative payment approaches in real-world farming contexts across Europe. Bringing together 26 agricultural organisations, research institutions, public authorities and private actors from 11 European countries, the project will establish 14 innovation hubs. These hubs will work with farmers and local stakeholders to develop, test, adapt and scale innovative approaches that reward environmental results. In Slovenia, the project focuses on two national innovation hubs: (1) scaling up targeted conservation measures for endangered farmland bird species, and (2) developing results-based programmes for farm holdings in protected areas.