ERA-Net on INtesTInal MICrobiomics, diet and health, implementing JPI HDHL objectives

Project Information

HDHL-INTIMIC

Grant agreement ID: 727565

DOI

10.3030/727565

Project closed

EC signature date 11 October 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 31 May 2023

Funded under

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

Total cost

€ 10 602 500,00

EU contribution

€ 3 498 825,00

Coordinated by

DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR LUFT - UND RAUMFAHRT EV
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HDHL-INTIMIC (ERA-Net on INtesTInal MICrobiomics, diet and health, implementing JPI HDHL objectives)

Reporting period: 2017-12-01 to 2023-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

There is a high burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD) caused by unhealthy diets and lifestyle patterns. To tackle this, the Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL) launched a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) that has regularly been updated and accompanied with respective Implementation Plans (IP) to foster European research and competitiveness through national and international programmes to lower the burden of NCD caused by unhealthy diets and lifestyle patterns. In this context, the ERA-Net Cofund HDHL-INTIMIC (INtesTInal MICrobiomics) was established to increase the impact of national and transnational research programmes as well as having a leverage effect on European Research Area within the scope of the JPI HDHL SRA. HDHL-INTIMIC aimed to provide a robust platform for implementing joint funding actions (JFAs) to create a transnational network of researchers collaborating in the field of diet, intestinal microbiomics and health as well as other research areas within the scope of JPI HDHL. The ERA-Net Cofund instrument was optimally suited to implement funding actions under a flexible and sustainable framework to reduce the fragmentation of research funding and efficiently aligning the JPI HDHL activities among partners and beyond. The HDHL-INTIMIC consortium comprised 14 institutions from nine EU and associated countries. The objectives of this network were:
1. to set up a consortium of funding organisations that are committed to support research in the field of food, diet, intestinal microbiomics and health.
2. to support early career scientists.
3. to explore the implementation of a third additional Joint Funding Action (JFA3), based on the IPs of the JPI HDHL.
With the cofunded call and four additional non-cofunded joint funding activities implemented the consortium succeeded in establishing this robust and still flexible platform which is underlined by the overall satisfaction of the HDHL-INTIMIC partners with the operational processes as well as the expected outcome and impacts of this ERA-Net. Overall, the consortium achieved its goals, contributing to reduce fragmentation of nutrition and life-style related research, align national research strategies and funding activities, promote excellence, and enhance the European collaboration with countries outside the EU. HDHL-INTIMIC performed very successful work as a new ERA-Net Cofund in the area of microbiome and nutrition research and did impact research policies and research outcome on regional, national, European level and beyond in all relevant areas and sectors.

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

In 2017, the cofunded transnational call on the “Interrelation of the Intestinal Microbiome, Diet and Health” has been successfully implemented. Complementary to this research call, a call for a “Knowledge Platform for Intestinal Microbiomics, Diet and Health” (INTIMIC KP) has been launched in 2018 as an additional networking action with the aim to foster transnational and multidisciplinary collaboration and networking between research consortia funded under the HDHL-INTIMIC cofunded call as well as the ones funded through other relevant initiatives. Additional funding activities of HDHL-INTIMIC were based on the Implementation Plan (IP) of JPI HDHL to fulfil its objectives. In 2019, a call on the “Impact of Diet, Food Components and Food Processing on Body Weight Regulation and Overweight Related Metabolic Disease" (METADIS) was launched. Followed by a fourth call in 2020 funding research projects on “Prevention of unhealthy weight gain and obesity during crucial phases throughout the lifespan” (PREPHOBES). Finally, a fifth call was launched in 2021 focusing on “Standardised measurement, monitoring and/or biomarkers to study food intake, physical activity and health” (STAMIFY). In total, the five joint transnational calls launched between 2017 and 2021 allowed funding 28 research projects (including one Knowledge Hub) involving 173 research teams with a total budget of 28,5 M€.
The communication and dissemination activities related to HDHL-INTIMIC and in particular the cofunded projects made use of the same channels and tools as for other general JPI HDHL activities since these were already existing and well established and reach a broad community with a variety of different stakeholders and ambassadors, comprosing the scientific community, professionals, industry, policymakers as well as consumer and patient associations. The progress of the cofunded call and other HDHL-INTIMIC related activities have been reported on the JPI HDHL website and a dedicated HDHL-INTIMIC subpage, related documents and deliverables have been made available for the consortium partners by uploading them in the intranet or have been made publicly available depending on the nature of the deliverable. In addition, several factsheets on the ERA-Net HDHL-INTIMIC in general and separate factsheets for each of the funding actions have been designed and published on the JPI HDHL website in pdf-format. News items were regularly published on the website front page and circulated through the JPI HDHL newsletters and have been spread via JPI HDHL’s social media accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn to reach a broader public and to allow interaction.

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 funded research projects of the cofunded call aimed at deepening the understanding of the causal relationships between the intestinal microbiome, diet and health in EU members states and beyond and providing a solid knowledge base for the development of strategies and products to prevent onset and development of diet-related NCDs through diet-dependent modulation of the intestinal microbiota. Although hampered by the emerging COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the results generated by the projects provide a strong basis for further research which will in the long-term lead to new microbiome-mediated strategies, recommendations and applications to reduce the incidence of diet related chronic diseases. For example, results from the projects will provide more evidence pro/contra a causal role of the food-microbe interactions for human health and will therefore have a strong long-term impact. However, subsequent research will be needed before results can be applied in practice and policy.
All joint funding actions addressed research needs that have been previously identified in the JPI HDHL SRA and therefore contributed significantly to fulfil JPI HDHL objectives. The quality of research carried out by the projects is in general high with great potential for impact due to a high degree of transnational collaboration between research institutes, universities, (non-)governmental institutes and in some cases industry and due to the innovative methodologies used within the projects. Since the projects from the cofunded call and JFA1 have only finished their work in 2022 and the projects from the other JFAs are still running, the main outcomes so far are scientific publications and the main dissemination routes are therefore academic journals, follow-up projects, scientific conferences and peer-to-peer communication. Nevertheless, the preliminary output of the projects show a strong potential to advance this field of research and provide new strategies for improving public health and reducing the incidence of NCDs. However, the real societal and/or scientific impact of the projects and the ERA-Net in general can thus only be assessed in a few years’ time.

The geographical distribution of the countries participating to HDHL-INTIMIC