The FAIR principles provide a framework for enabling proper access and reusability of scientific data, and implementing them is a key goal of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). However, providing access to sensitive or confidential data while preserving privacy/confidentiality and usability for researchers is still an open question. Existing solutions like safe rooms, safe pods, or data safe havens are often challenging for the development of reproducible research and seem counter-intuitive when dealing with open science and FAIR principles. The SIESTA project aims to provide a set of tools, services, and methodologies for the effective sharing of sensitive data in the EOSC, following a cloud-based model and approach. SIESTA will provide user-friendly tools with the aim of fostering the uptake of sensitive data sharing and processing in the EOSC. The project will deliver trusted cloud-based environments for the management and sharing of sensitive data that are built in a reproducible way, together with a set of services and tools to ease the secure sharing of sensitive data in the EOSC through state-of-the-art anonymization techniques. The overall objective is to enhance the EOSC Exchange services by delivering a set of cloud-based trusted environments for the analysis of sensitive data in the EOSC demonstrating the feasibility of the FAIR principles over them.

COMFOCUS brings together, integrates on European scale, and opens up key national and regional research infrastructures in the inherently interdisciplinary field of food consumer science to all European researchers, from both academia and industry, ensuring their optimal use and joint development. Its mission is to advance the food consumer science community beyond its current level of fragmentation that is preventing it from being the data-rich science area contributing to the societal problem of (un-)healthy food choices. As a library of meta data and digital service tools, the COMFOCUS Knowledge platform is developed as an easily accessible focal point for all European researchers to make this happen within the principles of FAIR and Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) data use. COMFOCUS achieves this through a coordinated set of activities on networking, joint research and transnational and virtual access to key research infrastructures. Networking activities foster the culture of co-operation between 10 key research infrastructures, and beyond in interaction with academic and industry research users and technology developers. Joint research activities develop the harmonisation protocols for measurement and research procedures both in the area of conventional self-reported data and more objective emerging food consumer science methodologies. The transnational and virtual access activities ensure that researchers from outside the consortium are supervised to become experienced with this new way of working, while also contributing to the data infrastructure from which the COMFOCUS Knowledge platform can further grow into the future. Promotion of transnational and virtual access and dissemination of COMFOCUS outcomes and innovations for maximum impact will be supported by a Stakeholder Forum from relevant bodies such as consumer organizations, food industry, retail, NGOs, and policy makers at national and EU levels.

FNS-Cloud will overcome fragmentation problems by integrating existing FNS data, which is essential for high-end, pan-European FNS research, addressing FNS, diet, health, and consumer behaviours as well as on sustainable agriculture and the bio-economy. Current fragmented FNS resources not only result in knowledge gaps that inhibit public health and agricultural policy, and the food industry from developing effective solutions, making production sustainable and consumption healthier, but also do not enable exploitation of FNS knowledge for the benefit of European citizens. FNS-Cloud will, through 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 behaviours, 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 a 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 the FNS-Cloud will be based on Services that have the capacity to link with new resources and enable cross-talk amongst them; access to FNS-Cloud data will be open access, underpinned by FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-useable). FNS-Cloud will work closely with the proposed Food, Nutrition and Health Research Infrastructure (FNHRI) as well as METROFOOD-RI and other existing ESFRI RIs (e.g. ELIXIR, ECRIN) in which several FNS-Cloud Beneficiaries are involved directly.

RICHFIELDS Research Infrastructure on Consumer Health and Food Intake using E-science with Linked Data Sharing There is growing interest in consumer health as related to food, behaviour and lifestyle determinants. However, data is fragmented, key information is lacking, and the resulting knowledge gap prohibits policy makers and companies to make effective public health nutrition strategies and reformulation of food products. Making “the healthy the easy choice” requires knowledge on the context of personal life style choices of EU-citizens. RICHFIELDS will design a world-class infrastructure for innovative research on healthy food choice, preparation and consumption of EU-citizens, closely linked to their behaviour and lifestyle. This unique RI will bridge the gap by linking the agri-food and nutrition-health domains and account for the regional and socio-economic diversity of the EU. The RI will be instrumental to produce a scientifically reliable, technically sound and socio-legally robust evidence-base that enables scientists to efficiently collect, unlock, connect and share research data of EU-citizens. Consumers are central to the design: they harbour crucial information, as they increasingly adopt mobile apps and tech-wear, get access to e-business data and even medical information. Collectively, such real-life-time data create new opportunities for research, by e.g., monitoring of food-behaviour providing personalized feedback. For further testing, detailing and underpinning and theory-building, interfaces will be created to distributed facilities for experimental research, e.g., virtual supermarkets. Further enrichment of data is achieved via interfaces with information systems for food and health. The consumer-focus and the scientific evidence of RICHFIELDS will, via its services, be available to (a) EU-consumers and consumer platforms, (b) stakeholders along the food chain, and (c) policy actors in the agri-food and nutrition-health domain.

FishEUTrust represents a consortium of twenty-two organizations from fourteen countries, pooling their expertise to defragment the current food system to ensure sustainability and deliver solutions for a transparent and traceable seafood supply chain necessary to promote high-end, pan-European farmed seafood. The innovation at the heart of FishEUTrust is integrating different actors into a digital platform that links technology providers, supply chain stakeholders, regulatory/policymakers and consumers. FishEUTrust will establish five Co-creation Living Labs (CLLs) in diverse environments: the Mediterranean Basin, the North Sea and the Atlantic Sea. These CLLs will enable user involvement in innovation and development processes and act as demonstrators for the consortium to test and validate digital and non-digital supply chain solutions. Examples include creating sustainable business models, exploiting IPR strategies for aquaculture, e.g., protecting cultural and culinary heritage, short food supply chains, exploiting underused fish species, and innovative engaging activities to stimulate/nudge behavioural change. It will also develop tools for maximizing trust by guaranteeing the quality, safety, and traceability of seafood products based on smart control systems (sensors), a suite of tools integrating metagenomics, genetic biomarkers, isotopic techniques, and digital technologies (labelling, Product Passport/Blockchain). These tools will be integrated into a single cutting-edge digital FishEUTrust platform that will apply the latest in artificial intelligence, data science and human-computer interactions. Finally, an integrated impact assessment and life cycle analysis will be performed to quantify the environmental footprint, health sustainability, and socio-economic benefits of FishEUTrust solutions. FishEUTrust will be supported by a comprehensive scientific, public, policymaker and industrial dissemination plan to communicate results to a broad audience.