The European Commission has selected 39 EU supported initiatives following the first call for proposals under the 'Food quality and safety' priority of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6):
- 24 research projects (New Instruments, i.e. Integrated projects or Networks of Excellence)
- 12 specific support actions
- 3 additional actions for associated candidate countries.

It has published a catalogue on these projects of the projects (including Grain Legumes IP: see also Press releases): Following a one page summary of the project, the presentations then provide a list of participants and other practical information such as contact details and web addresses. The catalogue also contains a general introduction of the food quality and safety priority, its scope and objectives, details of how to participate, and links to other sources of information.

At the occasion of the second call, additionnal projects have been selected.

More details about the new instruments of the first FP6 call in Priority 5 Food quality & safety

HERE BELOW presentations of some of them:

QUALITY LOW INPUT FOOD: Low input for high returns
For the FP6 project, ‘Quality Low Input Food’, the research challenges are: to improve the match between what producers aim at, and what consumers want; to increase cost efficiency (but not at the expense of quality, or food safety); and to draw all possible environmental and energy use benefits from organic and ‘low-input’ farming.
The project will address these issues by vigorously investigating consumer behaviour, testing the safety and quality of organic and low-input food, and by applying Europe’s research expertise to improving the cost-effectiveness of low-input production.
The project involves 31 partners – eight are European companies, including six SMEs, involved in the production, processing and quality assurance of organic food.

Full title: Improving quality and safety and reduction of costs in the European organic and low input supply chain.
Contract n°: CT-2004-506358
Project co-ordinator: Carlo Leifert, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, c.leifert@ncl.ac.uk
More about QUALITY LOW INPUT FOOD

NuGO: the European nutrigenomics organisation
The primary aim of NuGO is integration, making future nutrigenomics research easier. Twenty-three from ten European countries form the core of the european nutrigenomics organisation.
NuGO aims to:
- Develop and integrate genomic technologies for the benefit of European nutritional science
- Facilitate the application of these technologies in nutritional research world-wide
- Create the world-leading virtual centre of excellence in nutrigenomics
- Train a new generation of European scientists to use post-genomic technologies.
More about NuGo

Diogenes: to target obesity problem
Diogenes is a pan-European Programme targeting the obesity problem from a dietary perspective: seeking new insights and new routes to prevention.
An Integrated Project of the EU Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (2005-2009).
The name Diogenes is the acronym and stands for "Diet, Obesity and Genes".
More about Diogenes

LIPGENE: reducing the burden of obesity
LIPGENE, a five-year Sixth Framework Programme
Integrated Project, is helping to reduce the economic and social burden of obesity by assessing the potential for diet-based prevention of metabolic syndrome. It involves 21 partners from ten countries, including scientists, economists and business.
More about Lipgene

HEALTHGRAIN: Extracting every grain of goodness
Cereal grains are an essential component of daily diet and a major source of dietary fibre, which is important for gut health and provides protection against colon cancer. Recent studies have shown that bioactive compounds in whole grains also provide significant protection against several ‘Western’ diseases, including a rapidly expanding epidemic of type 2 diabetes. European diets generally do not include adequate quantities of cereal grains, and cereal grain in European foods is usually in a refined form that greatly diminishes its nutritional qualities. As part of its overall plan to improve food safety and quality, the European Union wants the food industry to develop new healthy foods based on European cereal grains. The Integrated Project HEALTHGRAIN joins 43 partners from 15 countries working to increase availability of high-quality, health-promoting cereal-based foods, with the goal of increasing the average European citizen’s intake of protective whole grains.
More about Healthgrain

EuroPrevall: to examine interactions between food intake and immune system
EuroPrevall aims are to deliver improved quality of life for food allergic people. This will be achieved by integrating information and developing tools for use by European food allergy scientists, health professionals, food and biotech industries, and consumers – those who are food allergic and those who are not.
More about EuroPrevall

GA2LEN: Global Allergy and Asthma European Network
Asthma and allergy are Europe’s most common chronic diseases.
Their incidence has doubled over the last 30 years one in four children are affected and, ten years from now, more than half Europe’s citizens are likely to have an allergy. Scientists suspect changes in social or environmental conditions are responsible for this. Around the world, they are working hard to understand what causes these debilitating conditions and how to control them.
To ensure Europe retains its leading position in this research, a Network of Excellence has been established covering all aspects of asthma and allergy including its genetic basis, clinical treatment, environmental aspects, and social causes.
More about Ga2len

ECNIS: Dietary impacts on the risk of cancer
The ability of certain diets to protect against cancer has been well documented. However, the long latency periods, and confounding factors, associated with this disease make it extremely difficult to demonstrate beneficial effects attributable to specific nutrients. As even a modest reduction in the occurrence of cancer would generate huge social and economic savings, the European Union is keen to develop foods that could help either prevent or fight the disease. With 24 partners from 13 Member States, the ECNIS Network of Excellence will use exposure biomarkers and disease bioindicators to study how diet and hereditary factors can influence the risk of cancer from environmental factors.
More about Ecnis

EuroFIR: Information for all: a recipe for success
The growing recognition of the significance of diet in maintaining human health has generated
considerable amounts of research throughout
Europe. Food components have been shown to help
prevent a range of diseases and to prolong active
life, and the search continues to unravel the various effects of different nutrients. Much of the information uncovered by this work is hard to access, although the European Commission has actively encouraged collaboration in several programmes. The establishment of EuroFIR (the European Food Information Resource Network) will help to create a comprehensive and authoritative European databank containing information on nutrient ingredients and newly emerging bioactive compounds with putative health benefits.
www.eurofir.net

TRACE: tracing the origin of food
TRACE is funded through the Food and Quality Priority of the EU Framework VI research programme and aims to deliver a traceability infrastructure that can trace and confirm the origin of food.
More about Trace

SAFE FOODS: boost for consumer confidence
SAFE FOODS (Promoting Food Safety Through a New Integrated Risk Analysis Approach) seeks to refine risk analysis practice for food safety. Lasting four years, it combines the skills of natural and social scientists, stockbreeders, food producers, and regulatory bodies, coming from 33 institutions, not only in Europe but from other continents, too.
More about SAFE FOODS

Med-Vet-Net: for the prevention and control of zoonoses and food borne diseases
Med-Vet-Net is the European Network of Excellence for Zoonoses research.
Zoonoses are diseases that are naturally transmitted from animals to man.
Med-Vet-Net aims to is to develop a network of excellence for the integration of veterinary, medical and food scientists, in the field of food safety, at the European Level, in order to improve research on the prevention and control of zoonoses, including food-borne diseases. The Network will also take into account the public health concerns of consumers and other stakeholders throughout the food chain.
More about Med-Vet-Net

WELFARE QUALITY: Improving animal welfare and satisfying consumers
The project Integration of Animal Welfare in the Food Quality Chain (WELFARE QUALITY), aims to improve food quality by ensuring the welfare of farm animals. It will create standards for assessing the welfare of farm animals throughout Europe and develop practical strategies to improve it. A product information system will be drawn up to assure consumers that their food has been produced according to ethically sound procedures.
Forty organisations and university departments throughout Europe will contribute to this five-year Integrated Project
More about WELFAREQUALITY

BIOEXPLOIT: Plant breeding to cut chemical use
Because of GMO related fear in Europe, promising new developments in DNA technology for disease resistance breeding are not being explored and no alternatives to chemical treatment of crops are coming forward. So, the EU is investing in a five-year Integrated Project to develop new strains of wheat and potatoes with inbuilt resistance to fungal diseases. It has 42 participants representing 67 research groups in Europe and beyond. As well as a considerable investigative input, the programme also contains the necessary public information and dissemination elements.