D2.5 Report on public engagement events
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Given the project objective to explore the public’s conceptualisation of public benefit to capture its potential implications for COMFOCUS, this deliverable reflects the findings of public engagement events which were conducted in 6 European countries: Denmark, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Spain and the UK. Results show that perceptions of public benefit are not straightforward, and people’s understanding of trade-offs and the responsible actor(s) is limited. Especially further assistance in making healthier and/or more sustainable food choices is welcomed as a public benefit, alongside improving health in general. However, autonomy and choice are valued by the public, not only in food selection but also in how their data is used. The findings highlight the need to draw for frequent engagement in dialogues around public benefit with diverse groups, not just as beneficiaries, but also because of how the concept itself can evolve over time, with ever-changing and ever-increasing uses for data being discovered.

D3.5 Interim report on monitoring, evaluation and recommendation of results of COMFOCUS Open Calls and VA/TNA
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This interim report provides detailed information on the processes of monitoring, evaluation and recommendation of results of COMFOCUS Open Calls and VA/TNA projects until the end of October 2023. It includes the activity related to COMFOCUS Open Call 1 which was launched in May 2022 and Open Call 2 which opened in April 2023. Open Call 1 provides virtual access (VA) to the Citizen Data Platform (CDP) Easy Questionnaire Tool (EQT) and invited early career researchers from academia and industry to submit their research proposals in the field of food consumer science in the domain of healthy eating. This report provides an evaluation of Open Call 1, and why it brought not the success as we expected. In addition, the report provides insight in the first activities undertaken related to Open Call 2. As this is an interim report, the results and recommendations in the report will be useful in further monitoring the Open Call 2.

D8.2 Societal Engagement with food consumer science to establish a COMFOCUS protocol on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)

This deliverable summarises the input from information sources available on meetings and workshops with key COMFOCUS stakeholders and beneficiaries on the activities proposed and undertaken as part of COMFOCUS, including pre-processed notes, minutes, reports and/or recordings. These dialogues were held within the first two and a half years of the project with 5 main categories of stakeholder and/or beneficiary groups, including: COMFOCUS’s International Advisory Board (IAB), Stakeholder Forum (SF), Technology developers (TD), scientific experts in the field of food consumer science or Consumer Science Experts (CSE) and Members of the Public (MP).

Its main contribution is to capture common topics emerging from meetings with stakeholders and beneficiaries outside the COMFOCUS research consortium. These have highlighted the need for addressing the following issues:

1. Providing greater clarity on COMFOCUS policies and procedures, especially those related to Data Governance;
2. Providing evidence of who stands to benefit from COMFOCUS and in what way, including scientists, commercial companies, policymakers and members of the public;
3. Exploring how to better connect with existing infrastructures and ontologies as well as to increase awareness of and support for COMFOCUS from other researchers within and outside Europe;
4. Operationalising collaborations with businesses and others with commercial interests in an ethical manner (especially regarding the commercial exploitation of the data);
5. Ensuring the Sustainability of COMFOCUS, including its Business Model and Governance, with special focus on how its measures, procedures and tools will be updated to be kept current and relevant.

Annual Meeting 2024!

On February 27th and 28th, consortium members, IAB members and stakeholders gathered together in Ljubljana (Slovenia) to share and provide updates about the status of COMFOCUS after three years and settle goals for the last year of the project.

The main goals of the two-day meeting were:

• Further “shaping” the COMFOCUS community with a focus on vibrance and sustainability;
• Bringing COMFOCUS beyond the tipping point and show “proof of principle” of a Food Consumer Science integrated data and research infrastructure;
• Making plans for the future “after COMFOCUS”.

Stakeholder Forum and IAB (International Advisory Board) meetings also took place within the event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In sum, this year´s project meeting made a great contribution to the achievement of the project´s goals and for having an understanding of how we see the food consumer science field after COMFOCUS.
More information about the event.

Academic Training 2024!

On February 29th, COMFOCUS held an Academic Training in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and welcomed its fellows, who came to the event specifically to learn from the project members and share experiences with other fellows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Academic Training program aimed at demonstrating and disseminating harmonised measurements, protocols, datasets and to study best practices in the field of food consumer science (FCS).
A special session was led by two IAB members Damion Dooley and Laurette Dube, who passionately lectured about community building within and across scientific fields and the role of ontologies.
Dr. Javier de la Cueva talked about ethics in consumer research and data use: «Data is never neutral, it is a way of making politics. Therefore, we have to be very aware of the ethical, social and political effects involved in data collection, data management and data dissemination».
Prof. Dr. Hans van Trijp raised some important aspects on processing data for optimal FAIR data use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Luis Guerrero and Dr. Alejandra Bermudez from Consumer Behaviour Lab (Girona, Spain) gave a lecture on methodological advances in immersive technology in food consumer science. Together with Dr. Clara Mehlhose (University of Göettingen) and Prof. Mari Sandell (University of Turku), they led an interactive session with the opportunity to test emerging technologies that are used in the COMFOCUS research infrastructures, particularly, they could see how the virtual reality approaches work in real life.
Participants could also work in groups in a community building session, where they first presented their scientific posters to each other and then reflected on what they earn from cooperation with the project and how they personally could contribute to COMFOCUS.
More information about the event.