Organic agriculture and food markets have grown considerably and organic agriculture addresses important challenges of European agriculture, such as sustainable production of high quality food, reducing dependency on high energy inputs, improving environmental and nature conservation, climate change adaptation, animal welfare and rural livelihoods. Organic farming and food systems still have a big potential for innovation and improved solutions. Research activities will be important for this. Coordinated transnational research has the potential to create a less fragmented research area in this fast growing sector. CORE Organic II builds on the outcome of the first CORE Organic to aim at an effective and sustainable transnational research programme. It will identify common research priorities for the organic sector where a transnational approach will give added value, launch at least two transnational calls, initiate research projects, organize project monitoring and dissemination of results, and consider funding models. CORE Organic II will also develop all components to continue the transnational research activities beyond the ERA-NET. The results of CORE Organic II will be a strong and sustainable network of funding bodies, all components for the effective continuation of collaboration, a series of on-going research projects and a plan to support dissemination. The expected benefits for Europe will be to reinforce its leading status and excellence in organic research, enhance the European research area on organic agriculture, increase the efficiency in use of organic research funds and improve the impact of research on the organic sector’s development. Initiating projects on topics identified as common priorities will allow the sector to better meet the demand for organic food and products. This will contribute to sustainable development in food production and improve the general competitivity of the European agriculture.