Abstract
COMFOCUS brings together, integrates on European scale, and opens up key national and regional research infrastructures in the inherently interdisciplinary field of food consumer science to all European researchers, from both academia and industry, ensuring their optimal use and joint development. Its mission is to advance the food consumer science community beyond its current level of fragmentation that is preventing it from being the data-rich science area contributing to the societal problem of (un-)healthy food choices. As a library of meta data and digital service tools, the COMFOCUS Knowledge platform is developed as an easily accessible focal point for all European researchers to make this happen within the principles of FAIR and Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) data use. COMFOCUS achieves this through a coordinated set of activities on networking, joint research and transnational and virtual access to key research infrastructures. Networking activities foster the culture of co-operation between 10 key research infrastructures, and beyond in interaction with academic and industry research users and technology developers. Joint research activities develop the harmonisation protocols for measurement and research procedures both in the area of conventional self-reported data and more objective emerging food consumer science methodologies. The transnational and virtual access activities ensure that researchers from outside the consortium are supervised to become experienced with this new way of working, while also contributing to the data infrastructure from which the COMFOCUS Knowledge platform can further grow into the future. Promotion of transnational and virtual access and dissemination of COMFOCUS outcomes and innovations for maximum impact will be supported by a Stakeholder Forum from relevant bodies such as consumer organizations, food industry, retail, NGOs, and policy makers at national and EU levels.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Mario Mazzocchi
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche "Paolo Fortunati"
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-Alimentari
Coordinator:
Stichting Wageningen Research - Wr(Netherlands)
Other Participants:
Jozef Stefan Institute
(Slovenia)
University Of Surrey
(United Kingdom)
Turun Yliopisto - University Of Turku
(Finland)
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna
(Italy)
Noldus Information Technology Bv
(Netherlands)
Institut De Recerca I Technologia Agroalimentaries
(Spain)
Nofima Genetics as
(Norway)
Slovenská polnohospodárska univerzita v Nitre - Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra
(Slovak Republic)
Università Studi Trento
(Italy)
Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação - C.E.F.I., S.A.
(Portugal)
Aarhus Universitet
(Denmark)
Wu Wageningen Universiteit
(Netherlands)
Dil-Deutsches Institut Fuer Lebensmitteltechnik E.V-German Institute Of Food Technologies
(Germany)
De La Cueva Gonzalez Cotera Javier
(Spain)
Total Eu Contribution: Euro (EUR) 4.997.142,31
Project Duration in months: 48
Start Date:
01/03/2021
End Date:
28/02/2025
This project contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101005259