Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Highlights
UNIBA, with currently over 43,000 students, is one of the largest generalist Universities in Italy with 22 Departments, covering all fields of research from basic to R&D, about 52 research and didactic centers and two schools: “Sciences and Technologies” and “Medicine”.
UNIBA, with currently over 43,000 students, is one of the largest generalist Universities in Italy with 22 Departments, covering all fields of research from basic to R&D, about 52 research and didactic centers and two schools: “Sciences and Technologies” and “Medicine”. The UNIBA scientific community consists of 1.565 faculty members (professors and researchers). It proposes 127 graduate programs (5 in English), 23 Ph.D. programs and 68 post-graduate programs; in detail, 7 Bachelor’s degree, 6 Master’s degree and 6 Ph.D. courses, all perfectly fit the ONFOODS themes. UNIBA is strong oriented to gender equality and denies every kind of discrimination, as proved by the recent approved gender- balance plan.
UNIBA takes a big effort to finalise the attractiveness of national/international funding, with more than 180 grants in FP7, H2020, PRIMA, ARIMNET2, ENPI CBC MED, National and Regional projects. UNIBA researchers have been awarded prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions grants. UNIBA has obtained numerous international projects focused on Food/Nutrition/Sustainability/Health, for a total of approximately € ca. 100 million in the last five years.
In this proposal are included 30 academic researchers with international track record and covering a variety of scientific sectors including: agricultural and veterinary sciences, nutrition, medicine and metabolism; chemistry and biochemistry. Research and development in the ONFOODS area of interest involves the development of food safety, functional foods, studies on nutrition, nutrigenomics and metabolism, intestinal microbiota (in health and disease); the design of novel foods, the research about the reuse of waste and by products, the elaboration of new strategies for a more sustainable agriculture are the main activities of the researchers belonging to UNIBA. Infrastructures and the capacity of the UNIBA selected team will be able to mitigate problems occurred during the development of research activities. The team has also shown a great capacity in problem solving attitudes in the framework of the several contacts and research activities with private institutions, where the food industry has many times involved UNIBA unique competences to overcome different issues including food science and nutrition.
The Community of Mediterranean Universities - CUM, the Italian Interuniversity Consortium for Argentina - CUIA, the European University Association - EUA, the Union of Mediterranean Universities - UNIMED and the European University Network – UNISCAPE are some examples. UNIBA expresses the Vice-Presidency of the intergovernmental institution CHIEAM which plays a prominent role in numerous activities that constitute a platform for interested international institutions and organisations cooperating in the Mediterranean.