H2020 PROTECT Project: Predictive modeling tools to assess the effects of climate change on food safety and spoilage
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2019 -2023
- Assigned Budget 2.115.541,44 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing Horizon 2020
- Project website Proyecto PROTECT
Meeting the population's growing demand for food while simultaneously addressing the impact of climate change on food quality and safety are two closely related priorities for the EU. The EU-funded PROTECT Innovative Training Network (ITN) focuses on food safety and the potential influence of climate change. It will recruit and train eight highly qualified early-stage researchers in advanced modeling tools to assess the impact of climate change on food safety. This ITN will combine practical research training, non-academic internships, summer courses, and workshops.
The project will bring together academic and non-academic partners from 11 European countries (7 higher education institutions, 6 industrial partners, and 1 United Nations agency). PROTECT will develop a science-based decision-support tool and provide policy guidance through a white paper.
PROTECT is an Innovative Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018, Grant No. 813329). The overall objective of this Innovative Training Network (ITN) is to provide high-level training in Predictive Modeling Tools for Assessing the Effects of Climate Change on Food Security (PROTECT) to a new generation of high-performing Early Stage Researchers (ESRs). PROTECT provided ESRs with the transferable skills needed to thrive in a flourishing field that supports innovative technological development across a range of diverse disciplines. PROTECT started its 42-month training network on 1 April 2019 with a 6-month recruitment drive.
All ESRs were in place on 1 January 2020 and began working on their respective tasks. A website (www.protect-itn.eu) was created to contribute to the exploitation and dissemination of PROTECT ITN's objectives, targets, and results. In addition, other social media and dissemination channels (e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) were leveraged. The launch and inauguration event took place at the University of CD (23-24 May 2019) with a video conference by EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan. During this meeting, management structures were also established, including a Supervisory Board (with representatives from all partner institutions).
Several training workshops (two workshops) and summer schools (two summer schools) were organized throughout the action, with leading roles and significant input from industry partners. The Training Network's outcomes were disseminated beyond national borders through social media and academic networks. ESR representatives also presented their work at several outreach events, including school visits. Of note was the creation of the PROTECT comic, aimed at primary school children (ages 6 and up) to illustrate the main concepts and outcomes of the PROTECT Training Network in a simple and fun way. The comic is freely available for download at: https://researchrepository.ucd.ie/handle/10197/13121 . The final PROTECT Training Network conference (UCD Dublin, November 2022) was organized with the support of academic and industry partners. The conference was open to researchers, regulatory bodies, and industry professionals, and served as an effective platform for disseminating the Training Network's findings to a wider audience.
This initiative led to the development of risk assessment tools, decision support tools, and a paper highlighting the need for advanced predictive modeling approaches that combine food safety and microbial data with climate change data to investigate the impact of climate change on food safety.
Climate change and food security have become interdependent global research priorities. To meet the EU's challenge of doubling food production by 2050 (to meet population demand) while simultaneously addressing the impact of climate change on food security, investment in research is required to address this major societal issue. The overall objective of this Innovative Training Network (ITN) is to provide high-level training in Predictive Modeling Tools for Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Food Security (PROTECT) to a new generation of high-performing early-career researchers.
PROTECT provided early career researchers with the transferable skills needed to develop successful careers in a growing field that supports innovative technological development across diverse disciplines. This goal was achieved through a unique combination of practical research training, non-academic internships, summer schools, and workshops on transferable and research-related skills, facilitated by the consortium's academic and non-academic composition.
PROTECT brought together the cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary expertise of 11 European countries (7 higher education institutions, 6 industrial partners, and 1 UN agency). At the end of the project, the consortium shared its technical and training expertise to recruit and train 8 highly qualified ESRs in advanced modeling tools to investigate the societal challenge posed by the impact of climate change on food safety. Food is considered unsafe if it is harmful to health (due to pathogenic bacteria or mycotoxins) or unfit for human consumption (due to spoilage bacteria).
Furthermore, PROTECT leveraged this new knowledge to develop science-based decision-support modeling tools and developed a policy guide through a white paper. The consortium supports the creation of specialized jobs in an area crucial to human and environmental health, while ensuring continued growth and public confidence in the European agri-food sector.
Climate change and food security have become interdependent global research priorities. To meet the EU's challenge of doubling food production by 2050 (to meet population demands) while simultaneously addressing the impact of climate change on food security, investment in research is required to address this issue.
The overall objective of this Innovative Training Network (ITN) is to provide high-level training in Predictive Modeling Tools for Assessing the Effects of Climate Change on Food Security (PROTECT) to a new generation of high-performing early-stage researchers. PROTECT will provide them with the transferable skills needed for prosperous careers in a thriving field that supports innovative technological development across a variety of diverse disciplines.
This objective will be achieved through a unique combination of hands-on research training, non-academic placements, summer schools, and workshops on transferable and research-related skills facilitated by the consortium's academic and non-academic composition. PROTECT brings together cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary expertise from 11 European countries (7 third-level educational institutions, 6 industrial partners, 1 UN agency). The consortium will share technical and training expertise to recruit and train eight highly qualified RSEs in advanced modeling tools for investigating the impact of climate change on food safety, considering food as unsafe if it is harmful to health (due to pathogenic bacteria or mycotoxins) or unfit for human consumption (due to harmful bacteria).
Furthermore, PROTECT will use this new knowledge to create a science-based decision-support tool and develop policy guidance through a technical document. The consortium will support the creation of specialized jobs in an area critical to human and environmental health, while ensuring continued growth and public confidence in the European agri-food sector.
Contemporary prediction of future climate and food security issues requires intensive laboratory and field testing, monitoring, and measurement, making integration into an optimized assessment system difficult. The work proposed in this Training Network focused on the use of state-of-the-art predictive models, Bayesian techniques, expert elicitation, multi-criteria decision analysis, second-order Monte Carlo analysis, sensitivity techniques, and scenario analysis, which, to date, have not been fully exploited in the EU.
While work on the influence of climate change on food security in Europe is limited (due to high technological and methodological complexity), the full potential of these techniques has yet to be realized, and integrating food security with climate change represents a larger-scale, innovative breakthrough beyond the state of the art. PROTECT extrapolated the models and analytical approaches to real-life scenarios, in collaboration with key internationally renowned industrial partners with a strong desire to address this emerging issue. The PROTECT program successfully delivered high-quality interprofessional training to enhance the career prospects and employability of FSRs. The Training Network enabled FSRs to expand their scientific and technical competencies.
Thanks to the practical training program's workshops and summer schools, the ESRs have expanded and developed their scientific and professional skills, significantly enhancing their knowledge of environmental impact, food safety, and risk management in the food chain. The full participation of renowned industrial partners demonstrated the high demand for the ESRs' expertise. This initiative has resulted in the publication of several research results in high-quality, peer-reviewed international journals, with presentations at various international and national conferences.
The PROTECT Training Network's final conference (Dublin, Ireland, November 2022) was organized with the support of academic and industrial partners, serving as an effective platform to disseminate the Network's outputs (including risk assessment studies, modeling tools, and decision support tools) to a wider audience.
- UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN (NUID UCD)
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