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

The French National Research Agency, in partnership with nine countries (Belgium, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom) is launching a sixth call for proposals under the ERA-NET ERA-HDHL. The initiative aims to promote international research on nutrition and health. The global budget for this action will be of 6,9 millions of euros.

The aim of this call is to address how food ingredients and food processing methods can induce or prevent the occurrence of food intolerances and allergies. 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. immune reactions; 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.

Each consortium should include 3 to 6 partners eligible for funding from at least three different countries participating to this call and a maximum of 2 additional partners participating to the call with their own fund. No more than two partners eligible for funding from the same country will be accepted within the same consortium. An applicant cannot be involved in more than two proposals. Subject to the rules of the various funders, public research partners, as well as hospitals, private research organisations, private companies and associations may join the call. ANR will only fund the French partners of the selected projects. Selected projects will be funded for an initial period of three years. A detailed description of the eligibility requirements can be found in the call text.