Knowledge of the potential of microbiomes throughout the food chains is seen as a promising means to ensure the sustainability of our food system and address a number of key societal challenges, including food and nutrition security, health and wellbeing, food waste management, climate change adaptation and mitigation. This is reflected in the increased number of microbiome-based applications in food systems. To fully unlock this potential, better understanding, closer cooperation between sectors, regions and stakeholders, appropriate regulation and public acceptance are essential.
Although a number of relevant European programmes and initiatives are ongoing, they are largely fragmented, implying a stringent need for coordinated action on both European and international levels. To address these issues, the European Commission launched 2016 the International Bioeconomy Forum (IBF), and in particular, the working group 'Food Systems Microbiome'. The task of MicrobiomeSupport was to support the EC with the implementation of activities, integration of experts, and coordination within the WG 'Food Systems Microbiome'. To accomplish that, MicrobiomeSupport focussed on the following objectives:
• Identify and map microbiome activities in the EU and worldwide, including programmes and facilities, along the food chain and beyond.
• Improve the use of existing data to allow comparability and improved mining of microbiome data, including microbiome standards and best practices.
• Define strategic agendas to enable joint international microbiome applications in the food sector and beyond.
• Raise awareness and exchange of knowledge across scientific and political communities, including the IBF and the general public.
• Create a platform for scientists, regulatory experts, industry, funding and policy organisations, and support the IBF to implement the 'Food Systems Microbiome' WG.
• Promote collaboration and coordination in support of a sustainable bioeconomy in Europe and beyond.
MicrobiomeSupport implemented a mapping exercise to establish a database containing relevant information on microbiome-related strategies and policies, funding programmes, research projects, and organisations involved in research, education and product/application development. The Microbiome Research Database was made available in November 2020 and updated in October 2022. The microbiome R&I landscape was assessed, and the conditions needed to ensure that the microbiome potential is exploited in support of sustainable and resilient (food) systems were identified (Meisner et al., 2022).
Great importance was attributed to involving relevant stakeholders in the elaboration of pertinent issues. The 'Common Ground Workshop' organised in 2019 was attended by more than 100 experts representing science, policy and industry stakeholder groups. Participants discussed the current situation within the microbiome R&I landscape, new trends and opportunities, as well as barriers and needs. Building upon these results, seven workshops addressing technical, regulatory and strategic issues pertinent to the further development of the microbiome R&I landscape were executed. All workshops involved MicrobiomeSupport partners and relevant external stakeholders. Several major publications (Berg et al., 2020; Ryan et al., 2020; Ryan and al., 2021; Cernava et al., 2022; Ferrocino et al., 2022) were developed from these workshops and published as open access in recognised, peer-reviewed journals providing technical and framework recommendations for the microbiome research.
Based on the results obtained throughout the project mapping data, technical recommendations, recommendations on the educational needs and regulatory issues, expert feedback from the two Delphi surveys, a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda was developed and published.
