The University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) is to receive £350K over 3.5 years as part of a pan-European project bringing together over twenty years’ research into food and its impact upon health and wellbeing.
The Food-Cloud project, funded through the EU’s Horizon 2020 project, comprises 36 partners including research institutes, universities, SMEs and large companies across the European Union working in the medical and food sectors. Its purpose is to make the research carried out by scientists readily available and accessible to inform public health and agricultural policy. The project will also be of particular benefit the food and agriculture industries and aims to reduce development and production costs as well as facilitate informed consumer choice to promote health and wellbeing.
Food Cloud will gather together the results of the projects funded by the European Commission relating to food and health, for example, micro and macro nutrient status, gut health, food in cancer prevention, security of food and general diet, health, and consumer behaviour as well as on sustainable agriculture and the bio-economy. These results are often published in dispersed publications and journals and in non-searchable formats requiring highly specialised knowledge to access them.
Food-Cloud will bring together these results and translate them into formats that are accessible to users across sectors and countries. All the data will be open access and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-useable).
The University’s Wales Academy for Professional Practice and Applied Research (WAPPAR) will lead the 7th package out of 8 within the total project. The team, led by Dr Annette Fillery-Travis, will provide work-based learning expertise in the design and coordination of accreditation, seminars, conferences and an innovative learning platform to allow full use of the FNS-Cloud by such diverse groups as food technologists, researchers, nutritionists, health care professionals, food companies and schools.
Dr Annette Fillery-Travis, Head of WAPPAR, said: “We are delighted that through our expertise in ‘learning at work for work’ we will make this incredible resource easily available and usable by people around Europe to address questions on diet, health, agriculture and biodiversity. The interdisciplinary ethos at UWTSD enables us to work in this complex arena and provide a solution for all”.
The Wales Academy for Professional Practice and Applied Research provides professional development opportunities for employers and their employees thatsupports people to flourish and to make a significant contribution to their organisation. The Academy can also recognise individuals’ experiences and learning and can provide academic credentials that evidence their achievements. WAPPAR works with organisations to get the most impact from their training budgets as well as individuals seeking higher education qualifications – from certificates in higher education to professional doctorate.
