As the challenges surrounding unhealthy eating patterns and their impact on public health continue to grow, a deeper understanding of the complex drivers behind food choices is needed. Launched in 2021, the COMFOCUS project envisioned Open Science as the basis for food consumer science to become future-proof and enable the community to integrate a comprehensive, data-driven approach to better support evidence-based policies and strategies.

The final conference of the COMFOCUS project “Advancing Open Science in the food consumer science field”, held in Wageningen on the 13th of February, was the occasion to show case the tools developed as part of this EU project and reflect on the lessons learned.

The event began with a presentation by Dr. Michiel Reinders, project coordinator, on establishing a research community in the Food Consumer Science field. Dr. Reinders outlined the challenges and opportunities that motivated the project, including:

· A lack of harmonization and data integration within the field

· Insufficient collaborative efforts and joint initiatives

· Reliance on subjective self-reported data, prompting exploration of alternative methodologies and tools

· The potential for current developments in data science to transform the field

Thus, COMFOCUS focused on three interrelated challenges:

1. Institutional collaboration across Europe

2. Social integration of early-career researchers

3. Data sharing and integration

Dr. Reinders highlighted the project’s key achievements, including the development of a knowledge platform featuring a metadata library and digital service tools, such as an easy questionnaire tool and harmonization guidelines. However, he also acknowledged the difficulties faced, particularly regarding cultural and linguistic barriers, differences in willingness versus ability to standardize data, and varying perspectives between consumers and

data scientists. While the project has successfully laid the foundation for a research community, further steps are necessary to strengthen and expand it.

Other keynote speakers included:

· Dr. Roland Pieruschka from the Jülich Research center, presenting the advancements of Open Science in the field of plant phenotyping

· Prof. Hans van Trijp shared insights on the perception of participants of COMFOCUS post-project, highlighting the overall strong support for the starting community.

· Prof. Liisa Lähteenmäki with a lecture on the new handbook of scales created as a tool to help selecting adequate measures, planning studies and enhance harmonisation in the consumer science research field.

The event also featured the COMFOCUS Market, where participants explored the innovative tools and technologies included in the project:

· COMFOCUS Toolbox: Key services facilitating study design, survey creation, and implementation, including tools for data validation, harmonized protocol search, dataset search, scientific analysis, and visualization.

· Eye-tracking tool: A recording tool with applications in marketing, such as optimizing healthy product placement.

· Virtual Reality: A promising standardized approach to studying behaviours, for instance, consumer preferences and attitudes in simulated supermarket environments.

· Electroencephalogram (EEG) technology: Used to analyse brain responses to marketing stimuli, offering insights into consumer behaviour.

· NOLDUS Hub: software system for human behaviour studies measuring signals, such as facial expression and eye tracking.

The conference concluded with a panel discussion on the future of Open Science in food consumer research. Topics discussed included enhancing diversity and inclusivity among researchers, the recognition that complete harmonization is often not feasible due to contextual and cultural differences, and the need to maintain flexibility while standardizing constructs in the field. The panel also emphasized the ongoing importance of Open Science initiatives to improve research practices.

The panel emphasised the need to maintain the momentum built through COMFOCUS and continuing efforts to create harmonized standards and tools that enhance data usability and interoperability. For more information, visit the website of the project.