In a nutshell: HoloFood was part of the Microbiomes4Life cluster - a group of EU funded Innovation and Coordination&Support Actions that centre on common themes of understanding and harnessing microbiomes for sustainable food systems.
Understanding microbiomes is one of the next big scientific frontiers: this understanding will provide meaningful individual and public health solutions, impact on climate change and help transform our food systems. However, research into microbiomes beyond human health is currently limited. To that end, the European Commission has decided to fund five projects on the food systems microbiome that focus on understanding research, policy and regulatory needs, as well as driving microbiome-based innovations within food production.
These projects are MicrobiomeSupport, MASTER, CIRCLES, HoloFood and SIMBA and they are working together to deliver a greater impact. Together we cover a number of food environments where microbiomes significantly impact on the health effects, safety and sustainability of the food we eat; how microbiome knowledge can be applied practically in different farming and production processes is being explored. Concurrently, our projects are:
- raising awareness of the importance of the microbiome in the food system in the hope to improve public acceptance of potential microbiome innovations;
- preparing roadmaps for infrastructure and funding needs to improve microbiome research in general;
- informing on policy and regulatory hurdles that microbiome innovations may encounter on the way to the market; and
- ensuring the engagement of a wide stakeholder network to deliver win-win-win situations for people, planet and profit.
All five projects have joined efforts and created the Microbiomes4Life project cluster. With joint communication material and the use of the hashtag #Microbiomes4Life in social media, we want to further raise awareness of the importance of microbiomes in the food system.
With a successful Horizon Booster the #Microbiomes4Life created social media material about the importance and role of microbiomes within food systems. These materials were gradually released on the run up to 2021 World Microbiome Day with the special theme of 'Sustainability'.
This project has received funding from the European Unionʼs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817729.