The second coordination and support action for the JPI Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life

Project Information

CSA JPI HDHL 2.0

Grant agreement ID: 696300

DOI

10.3030/696300

Project closed

EC signature date 26 January 2016

Start date 1 February 2016

End date 30 June 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 2 426 126,25

EU contribution

€ 1 998 800,75

Coordinated by

ZORGONDERZOEK NEDERLAND ZON
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - CSA JPI HDHL 2.0 (The second coordination and support action for the JPI Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life)

Reporting period: 2020-02-01 to 2021-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Many European and other governments struggle with the societal and economic consequences of the alarming rise in chronic diet-related diseases. An increasing amount of people consume an unhealthy diet which is unbalanced and unsustainable. This puts people’s health status at risk and creates a significant pressure on the environment. At the same time, in many countries the population is ageing and this increases the incidence of malnutrition including underweight and micro deficiencies in the growing older population. Science has brought us valuable insights which can support society in moving towards a healthier and sustainable diet. Appropriate nutrition can reduce the risk of chronic disease. However, there are still crucial gaps in our knowledge that will enable policy-makers to tackle the societal challenge of nutrition and health such as the need:

- To better understand the interplay of biological, psychological and social factors,
- For more insight on the relationship between diet and disease, e.g. the relationship between diet and several types of cancer,
- To change consumer behaviours, as science has shown that education about healthy food is not enough to change behaviour,

Within the JPI A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life, governments are collaborating voluntarily to increase the impact of research investments that provide insight to underpin healthier societies. The main objectives of the CSA JPI HDHL 2.0 are to support the further implementation of JPI HDHL and to create a sustainable collaboration of Member States (MS), the European Commission (EC) and related international organisations. Support facilitated by this CSA will ensure sufficient progress on alignment and also on the ethos of joint programming in the area of food, nutrition and health becoming embedded within Member States’ research and innovation policies and programmes. The 2nd CSA focuses specifically on these issues and takes into account foresight and evaluation activities as important aspects for the future of research in the scientific and policy areas covered within the JPI HDHL.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The CSA 2.0 JPI HDHL facilitates the governing bodies of the JPI, the Management Board – the country representation - the stakeholder advisory board and the scientific advisory board, which provide advice to the Management Board in relation to their vision, strategy and implementation/dissemination activities. Furthermore the chair of J{I HDHL and coordinator of the CSA 2.0 represent JPI HDHL through support of the project in meetings at the EC level and related initiatives.

Besides the regular activities to support the governance bodies, additional effort has taken place in widening and improving the stakeholder involvement – both in the current stakeholder advisory board as well as in creating additional ways to exchange with stakeholders. Discussions took place with the Management Board and Stakeholder Advisory Board to better understand each others motivation for involvement in JPI HDHL; furthermore a desk study in stakeholder participation was performed. This resulted in a strategy which contains short and midterm goals which will be implemented during the course of the project.

The CSA JPI HDHL also takes care of the maintenance and development of the communication infrastructure and the development and implementation of the communication strategy. The website was visited by almost 40 thousand unique users in the last 8 months. The montly newsletter is circulated to 2600 subscribers and communication products have been published like fact sheets about funded research and 24 movies/ vlogs are placed on the youtube channel made by JPI HDHL and reachers funded by JPI HDHL. JPI HDHL is active on Twitter and LinkedIn, where it has around 1200 and 320 followers respectively. Four international JPI HDHL conferences have been organized. Updates have been developed of both the Strategic Research Agenda and the Implementation Plan.

JPI HDHL wants to share its plans and ambitions and ensure broad implementation within and between its member countries, together with other important stakeholders and at the level of the EC as well as beyond Europe. In the 1st project period the attention on the national level focussed on understanding better what the opportunities and barriers for national alignment are as well as the drivers to be involved in JPI HDHL. Based on the outcomes in the 2nd and 3rd reproting periods discussions took place at the level of the MB and a set of tools/products have been developed to support the MB to improve national alignment. In relation to the collaboration with others initiatives JPI HDHL made an overview on its website with over 100 organisations. Extensive collaboration took place around Food and Nutrition Security – especially with FACCE JPI and JPI OCEANS. A joint knowledge hub on FNS is funded with FACCE and OCEANS. Connection with the EC is made on various levels, for example in the discussions around the partnerships within the next framework programme HorizonEurope and through active roles in workshops/events organised by the EC and vice versa. JPI HDHL is also a consortium member of the CSA Fit4Food2030 and an active agendamember for the SCAR working group on Foodsystems. For JPI HDHLs collaboration with countries outside Europe a strategy has been developed, focussing especially on the Asia-Pacific Region. Australia and Singapore were visited during the second reporting period to explore possibilities for collaboration. Furthermore, unexpected opportunities presented itself to engage with the USA and Brazil.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The ultimate goal of the CSA JPI HDHL 2.0 is to support the member countries of JPI HDHL in the realisation of their ambitions and to work towards more impactful R&I investments in relation to the societal challenge JPI HDHL addresses. During the course of the CSA a plan to ensure the JPI HDHL can further develop after the project period will be developed, the Strategic Research Agenda will be updated to ensure a good connection with new insights and developments; a new Implementation Plan 2019-2021 will be published, insights in the performance will be shown through the evaluation activities and the involvement of various stakeholders will be improved. At the end of the project period due to the combined effort of the CSA JPI HDHL 2.0 and that of all of the member countries involved in JPI HDHL:

The JPI HDHL will contribute to more efficient and effective research in the area of food, nutrition and health, through investments in continuous, co-ordinated and collaborative research programming, in (interdisciplinary) research, in research infrastructures, novel research tools as well as evidence based policy, science and science-society interactions. By increasing the connection between national and international investments and specialising in funding tools that show the unique value of JPI HDHL the involvement with EU13 partners and regional funding will be strengthened. JPI HDHL will improve the societal value of national and international research investments by improving the stakeholder involvement and by making research results available for policy making. The global dimension of JPI HDHL will be strengthened by explicitly connecting our vision and mission with global political commitments set by the UN (SDG) and WHO and by working in collaboration with research funders globally to tackle this global societal challenge.

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