The overall aim of the MYCOBEANS project is to strengthen the collaboration and promote the excellence of the academic and non-academic institutions involved with the common goal of exploring the emerging risk due to the occurrence of mycotoxins in legumes intended as alternative plant proteins, and therefore increase the resilience of the beans and legumes sector. Thanks to its top-class partnership, MYCOBEANS will bring innovation in mycotoxins diagnostics, toxicological evaluation, and biotechnological mitigation along the entire plant protein supply chain. The consortium, led by the University of Parma, Italy, involves internationally-leading academic and non-academic partners from the EU, UK and ASEAN countries, and has been designed around the already existing network of the International Joint Research Center on Food Security, Thailand. The strong connectivity already in place among partners will ensure the knowledge and expertise transfer, help build new research alliances, and enrich staff and young researchers' capacities from all members of the consortium. Young researchers will be exposed to a very diverse and multidisciplinary environment, thus ensuring a quick professional growth. The specific objectives will be achieved through an extensive program of interdisciplinary and intersectoral short- and medium-term staff exchanges and expert visits, involving doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as senior staff, aimed at cross-pollination among scientific disciplines, from chemistry to toxicology, biotechnology, industrial processing as well as regulatory science. As a complement, a rich program of training workshops, seminars, summer schools and dissemination and outreach activities will ensure a significant impact both at a professional career level as well as for industry and society.

There is a global need, from sustainability, food security and also health perspective, to increase dietary intake of plant protein. Side-streams from wheat and rice processing offer large under-exploited raw material potential, and we will work throughout the agro-industrial value chain to valorise that. The main aim of PROMINENT is to develop techno-economically and environmentally viable protein-based ingredients and foods from cereal processing side streams. We will concentrate on novel fractionation and extraction technologies, such as bioprocessing, supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) -extraction, thermo-mechanical technologies, wet and dry fractionation, and expanded bed adsorption as well as their combinations as novel hybrid processing technologies. A strong focus will be in using enzymatic and thermo-mechanical methods to improve techno-functional and sensory properties of protein ingredients to reach desirable taste and texture in food applications. Pasta, biscuit, cake and beverage food models are the main end product categories, where new protein ingredients will be used as dietary protein source and act as performance proteins to deliver similar techno-functional and sensory properties to animal proteins. We will also assess the safety, quality, techno-economical feasibility, sustainability and market potential of the new protein ingredients and foods, and design strategies for marketing, dissemination, and exploitation of innovations. The project will support the economic growth, resource efficiency and sustainability of the European agro-food industry, and open new market opportunities by generating new plant protein ingredients obtained from cereal processing side streams as well as new products for the consumer food market.

The HIFLEX (“HIgh Storage Density Solar Power Plant for FLEXible Energy Systems”) proposal has the ambition to develop and demonstrate a complete pre-commercial flexible CSP prototype plant featuring cheap solid particles as storage and heat transfer medium. Operation of the thermal storage system over a temperature span of 700°C results in a 2.5x higher storage density and 50% lower cost. During the project a complete pre-commercial solar tower system will be developed and built. The system will be located at a Barilla pasta plant in Foggia, Italy, with the following components: a 20 MWh thermal storage able to provide 800 kWth for 24h, innovative solar particle receiver with 2.5 MWth peak power, heliostat field with about 6000m² of mirror area, a 620°C particle steam generator, a 100 kW electric heater and a 800 kW fuel heater. Fast ramping steam generation at 620°C enabling grid balancing will be demonstrated. The renewable-fuel heater ensures weather-independent availability. Further support of grid stability is achieved by using excess or cheap power from the grid to charge the storage for time-shifted electricity production (power-to-heat-to-power). Continuous long-term operation for 18 months will be conducted to prove the performance. The project aims to verify the technical maturity of the technology for market introduction. Based on the experience from the pre-commercial prototype, the cost reduction potential for a 100 MWe solar tower plant will be validated, as well as the least-cost mix of renewables (PV, wind power, CSP, storage capacity, power-to-heat capacity, renewable fuel) for the future commercial application at Barilla as CHP system will be evaluated. A business plan will be developed for fast market introduction of the technology. The project will provide a strong showcase, as basis for the exploitation activities to create new market opportunities, reduce market barriers and build confidence into the technology.

The U-TURN project aims at addressing freight urban distribution, focusing on food logistics. The project will contribute to our understanding of freight distribution in urban areas, especially addressing the special requirements and needs of food transportation, and will suggest innovative collaboration practices and tools towards achieving more efficient operations from both an environmental and cost perspective. The project will analyse existing freight urban flows, identify synergies and winning logistics sharing and collaboration strategies and will assess them in three ways: through comparative analysis based on actual market data, through simulation experimentation and via pilot execution in four different countries: Germany, UK, Italy and Greece. U-TURN will further contribute to the adoption of these strategies through managerial assessment, quantifiable benefits and the provision of tools, including a "smart" transport matching tool, a collaboration platform, a simulation tool and economic assessment model. The project aims to exploit the opportunities that currently exist for consolidation of transportation flows from food manufacturers to the various point-of-sales located in urban areas, as well as from local food producers and online retailers directly to consumers, and the high industrial interest behind this topic.