The Belgian node of METROFOOD-RI kicks off: METROFOOD-FED.BE starts

A significant development for the European research infrastructure METROFOOD-RI: recently, METROFOOD-FED.BE was launched. It’s a project funded for three years by BELSPO (Belgian Science Policy Office) for the implementation of METROFOOD-RI at the Belgian federal level. The project kickoff meeting took place at the Sciensano site in Tervuren on March 21, 2024, in the presence of delegates from BELSPO and METROFOOD-RI respectively from Belgium and Italy. On this occasion, the project's stakeholders from Sciensano's scientific direction for chemical and physical health risks presented the planned activities for METROFOOD-FED.BE.

In particular, the main objective of the Belgian project will be to develop, advance, and implement federal components of Sciensano (services) for the promotion of metrology in the food and nutritional sector within the European and international research and innovation (R&I) landscape. Through the project duration, METROFOOD-FED.BE, through its dedicated activities, will ensure that Sciensano's services are robust, well-developed, reinforced, optimally positioned and sufficiently innovative to cater to a broad set of target users seeking to improve practices and looking to apply state-of-the-art metrological solutions to challenges in food and nutrition.

As part of the project, selected services from Sciensano will be tested and robustly prepared to offer optimized performance and delivery, in line with ESFRI standards for long-term inclusion in the ESFRI research infrastructure, METROFOOD-RI. Specifically, all this will be achieved through two open transnational calls for access to Sciensano's federal components, where potential users of Sciensano's services will have the opportunity to access two services free of charge for their metrological needs in the food and nutritional field. The first service will focus on the physicochemical characterization of nanoparticles in materials in contact with food and their potential migration. A second service will address the safe and sustainable development, risk assessment, and conformity assessment of materials in contact with food.

With the official launch of METROFOOD-FED.BE, METROFOOD-EPI now boasts 12 national nodes: in addition to Belgium, Italy, Romania, Czechia, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Germany, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Turkey, and Switzerland are also present with national-level structures.