ABOUT FNS-Cloud

Duration: 4 years, 1^st October 2019 to 30^th September 2023

Coordinator: FNS-Cloud is coordinated by RTDS Association (AT)

Consortium: 35 beneficiaries from 12 EU Member States (AT, BE, BG, DE, DK, ES, GR, IE, IT, NL, SI, UK), Switzerland (CH) and the Republic of Serbia (RS).

Source of funding: Food Nutrition Security Cloud (FNS-Cloud) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (H2020-EU.3.2.2.3. - A sustainable and competitive agri-food industry) under Grant Agreement No. 863059.

AIM

FNS-Cloud integrated existing data that are essential for pan-European research addressing food and nutrition security (FNS) and diet, health and consumer behaviours as well as sustainable agriculture and the wider bioeconomy.

Current fragmentation of FNS resources (data, knowledge, tools and services) results in knowledge gaps that inhibit public health and agricultural policy and impede exploitation for the benefit of European citizens (e.g. sustainable production, access to nutritious products, easier healthy choices). FNS-Cloud includes three Demonstrators; Agri-Food, Nutrition & Lifestyle and NCDs & the Microbiome to facilitate:

1. Analyses of regional and country-specific differences in diet including nutrition, (epi)genetics, microbiota, consumer behaviour, culture and lifestyle and their effects on health (obesity, NCDs, ethnic and traditional foods), which are essential for public health and agri-food and health policies;
2. Improved understanding agricultural differences within Europe and what these means in terms of creating sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets; and
3. Clear definitions of boundaries and how these affect the compositions of foods and consumer choices and, ultimately, personal and public health in the future.

Long-term sustainability of FNS-Cloud was based on services linking existing and new resources, to enhance interaction amongst stakeholder groups, underpinned by FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-useable) principles. The project also worked closely with METROFOOD-RI and existing ESFRI RIs (e.g. ELIXIR, ECRIN), in which several FNS-Cloud Beneficiaries were involved directly, adding value and expanding our understanding of food and nutrition security, as well as the proposed Food, Nutrition and Health Research Infrastructure (FNHRI).

Role of EuroFIR AISBL in FNS-Cloud

EuroFIR AISBL was involved in all the work packages including WP1 Coordination, where Siân Astley was leading Task 1.7 Gender Action Plan and Monitoring. Paul Finglas, Angelika Mantur-Vierendeel and Mark Roe were contributing to the technical WPs 2: Preparation of FNS-Cloud and 3: FNS data standardisation and interoperability, scientific WPs 4: Use case and 5: Demonstrators, and horizontal activities in WPs 6: Dissemination, Communication and Community Engagement, which was led by Siân Astley, 7: Education, training and support, where Siân Astley was leading Task 7.4 Annual WBL Event and Social Media, and 8: Sustainability and governance, where Paul Finglas and Siân Astley were leading Task 8.6 Business Model Innovation for FNS-Cloud.

FNS-Cloud website