Horizon Europe ESM Project: Edible Soft Matter

The food and environmental transitions are major global challenges, as illustrated by the Farm to Fork Strategy, at the heart of the EU Green Deal, and the United Nations Development Goals. Sustainable and healthy eating requires an urgent shift from a diet rich in animal-based ingredients to one enriched with plant-based ingredients. This is the challenge behind the Edible Soft Matter (ESM) project. Soft matter science has had great success in addressing complex problems involving multi-component materials with a wide range of lengths and timescales and is now recognized as providing unique insights into understanding the complexity of food and designing new foods.

The objective of ESM is to train and develop the employability of a new generation of eighteen young researchers, regulators, consultants, and project leaders by providing them with unique experience in the design, production, and quality assessment of innovative plant-based food products. ESM PhD candidates will benefit from international, interdisciplinary, and cross-sectoral training through research in basic and applied food and soft matter sciences.

Through their individual research projects and network-wide training activities, characterized by strong participation from non-academic partners, they will develop the hard and soft skills needed to address current challenges related to the food and environmental transitions. The consortium includes eleven grantees (including three from the non-academic sector) from seven countries and eleven associated partners (including four from the non-academic sector), with complementary and globally recognized expertise in food and soft matter sciences. All developing countries will be exposed to academic and non-academic work environments.

ESM's objectives are timely, and ESM's unique training program holds great promise for advancing careers in developing countries, as well as for scientifically, technologically, and socially relevant outcomes.