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Innovative agri-environmental contracts are increasingly studied in the literature, but their adoption has been relatively slow and geographically scattered. Action-based agri-environmental measures remain the predominant policy mechanism across Europe. A three-round Policy Delphi study was conducted with policy makers, scientific experts, farmers’ representatives, and NGOs from across 15 different European countries, to investigate how and under which circumstances novel contractual solutions could be implemented more widely. The expert panel perceived result-based and collective contractual elements as the most promising. Although considered beneficial from several aspects, value chain contracts were perceived less relevant to the policy environment. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Pillar 2 measures were highlighted by the experts as the key policy area to implement novel contracts by national or regional authorities, but Pillar 1 eco-schemes, being launched in the CAP 2023–2027, were also considered as a potentially suitable framework for testing and implementation. The Delphi panel envisaged innovative contracts should be adopted by governments in iterative steps and not as a complete substitute for current payment schemes, but rather as an additional incentive to them. Such an incremental approach allows contractual innovations to capitalise on existing best practices. But it also implies the risk that innovative contracts could remain marginal and fail to substantially change farmers’ behaviour, resulting in a failure to improve environmental conditions.

In the presented dataset we have analyzed 19 innovative contracts for agri-environmental and climate schemes from six European countries. The selected contracts represent examples of four different contract types: result-based, collective, land tenure, and value chain contracts. For the analysis we used a three step approach: Step 1: We employed a method mix combining literature review, web search, and expert consultation to identify potential case examples for the innovative contracts, resulting in a final sample of four to five contracts per contract types including contracts from Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Step 2: We designed a survey structured in accordance with Elinor Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework to collect detailed information on overall 34 variables for each contract, yielding a data matrix with 646 data points. Step 3: We conducted an in-depth analysis for each contract on the involved actors and their roles in contract governance roles, generating a detailed inventory of 179 identified actors where each actor was assigned one or several out of 16 possible governance roles, creating a data matrix of 2,864 data points. The dataset generated through these three steps contains 84 data files, including tables, figures, maps, and one text file. The dataset can be re-used by all interested in the institutional and governance analysis of innovative contracts for agri-environmental and climate schemes. The dataset is linked to Work package 2 (WP2), Task 2.2 (T2.2), and Deliverable 2.2 (D2.2) of the research and innovation action ‘Contracts2.0’ (https://www.project-contracts20.eu/) funded under grant agreement no. 818190 through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. This dataset contains the information required to reproduce the results presented in the following research paper: Sattler, C., Barghusen, R., Bredemeier, B., Dutilly, C., Prager, K. (2023). Institutional analysis of