ERA-HDHL - Preliminary Announcement (2021)

“Addressing adverse and beneficial effects of food ingredients and food processing on hypersensitivities to food (FOOD_HYPERSENS)”

The call is now opened! Please click here for more information

Preliminary Announcement

The Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” has been established to coordinate research in the areas of food, diet, physical activity and health in order to achieve tangible societal and health impact and to strengthen European leadership and competitiveness in this field. The joint transnational call entitled “Addressing adverse and beneficial effects of food ingredients and food processing on hypersensitivities to food (FOOD_HYPERSENS)” will be launched under this umbrella.

Aims of the call

The aim of this call is to address how food ingredients and food processing methods could favour or prevent the occurrence of food intolerances and allergies in society.

Proposals should include research on one or more of the following topics:

• the mechanisms, responsible for inducing or preventing food intolerances and food allergies, both in children and adults (e.g. immunity; inflammation; nutrient metabolism; genetics; microbiota; physiology);
• how food processing and food ingredients can modulate the occurrence of food allergies/intolerances;
• the development of new approaches to food processing (e.g. novel food ingredients, novel processing methods) to decrease food intolerance/food allergy;
• the development and/or validation of diagnostics/methods to distinguish between actual and perceived food intolerances and allergies (IgE and non-IgE-mediated);
• the development and/or validation of detection methods for adverse or beneficial food components generated through food processing.

Beyond the research topics the following points should be taken into account:

• Proposals should show a strong collaboration between partners from different disciplines e.g. food technologists, nutrition scientists, social scientists, immunologists and / or health scientists;
• Proposals should clearly demonstrate the benefit of working together and the unique contribution of each partner;
• Proposals should be consumer/patient-oriented, e.g.: by handling consumer perception, by improving the availability of allergen information to consumers i.e. food labelling, online information etc., by involving consumers during food product development, through a better communication/information to the population or by other relevant activities;
• Proposals are encouraged to engage end-users (e.g. consumers/patients, industry, clinicians) in the research process from conception of the study to dissemination and implementation. These partnerships increase the impact of research and facilitate its later use in public health practice, contributing to the sustainability of the funded initiative;
• Collaboration with industry as a partner (eligible for funding), as collaborator (participating with own budget) or as part of an advisory board is strongly encouraged;
• Proposals should consider potential moderators of effects such as age, sex, gender and ethnic or other demographic features/differences in the respective research approaches;
• Proposals should make use of existing biobanks, if applicable. Otherwise, it should be explained why existing biobanks are not used;
• Animal studies and in vitro work with a clear relevance to human health and the topic being proposed are within the scope of this call.

Epidemiological studies are not eligible for this call.

General conditions for application

Only transnational projects will be funded: each consortium must involve three to six partners eligible for funding by the participating funding organisations from at least three different countries (eligibility of the research organisations and institutions is subject to national/regional regulations of the individual funding organisations and may therefore vary). No more than two eligible partners from the same country will be accepted in one consortium. In addition, a maximum of two additional partners can join the consortium if they are able to perform their work on their own fund. Projects will be initially funded for a period of three years. Eligible costs may vary according to the corresponding funding organisations’ regulations. Each institution will be subject to the rules and regulations of its respective national/regional funding agency. The call will follow a single-stage submission procedure followed by a rebuttal stage. Proposals must be written in English and must be submitted to the JCS by the coordinator through an electronic submission system. No other means of submission will be accepted.

Participating countries

Time schedule

More information available now online

Please note: The content of the call described in this pre-announcement is indicative and may be subject to changes and is not legally binding to the funding organisations. Interested applicants are encouraged to initiate scientific contacts with potential project consortium partners for applications