The funding comes from the EU’s research and innovation programme called Horizon Europe and Marie Curie Actions. “Through Nutriome, we will educate future researchers in personalised nutrition”, explains Ulven.
Horizon Europe and Marie Curie Actions fund projects that develop new ways of conducting training for doctoral research fellows and postdoctoral fellows. It is a research career programme with a high degree of international exchange and contact with relevant industry. Doctoral research fellows undergoing their doctoral training meet across national borders and exchange data and experiences between universities and industry partners.
Educating future researchers in personalised nutrition
The Nutriome network has put together an exclusive programme in order to educate ten motivated doctoral research fellows. The Doctoral research fellows will be trained in data-driven research within the field of personalised nutrition by learning to manage and interpret large, complex data sets from dietary interventions.
“The goal is to develop a toolbox of methods and knowledge in data-driven nutrition research that in the long term can be used as a platform of knowledge for developing personal dietary advice”, says Ulven.
How the Nutriome network training is organised
The Nutriome network includes nine academic institutions and six industrial partners from eight different European countries. Each of the ten doctoral research fellows admitted to the network will receive a team of three supervisors from universities and industry. The research school’s programme is divided into two main sections, a training phase and a project phase.
Firstly, the doctoral research fellows will acquire interdisciplinary skills and knowledge in sharing, using and integrating large, complex data sets. They will work with existing data that the partners already have, as well as open public data.
The doctoral research fellows will then be responsible for coordinating, implementing and analysing data in a new personalised meal study. They will learn to develop algorithms that can be used to tailor the dietary advice to be included in the study. In addition, the doctoral research fellows must undergo a three-month period of supervised professional training at an industry partner.
What will be the difference in results through using such an algorithm-based diet versus a regular diet? “We hope the research will provide an increased understanding of why people react differently to meals and to identify the factors that play a role”, says Ulven.
Collaboration with industry partners
Nortura and Norilia are two Norwegian industrial partners in the consortium. They provide expertise in relation to work on the consumer segment. They develop food in relation to specific groups. “Their contribution is that they can teach the doctoral research fellows, also called RDCs within the framework of Marie Curie Actions, how the food industry thinks and works in relation to precision nutrition”, explains Ulven.
In Sweden, there is an industrial partner that is working on methods for taking blood samples at home. “This is something we thought we could also test during this study”, says Ulven. “That not everything will take place at the study centres, samples can also be taken at home and then sent to us.”
“Another industrial partner in Sweden works with gene expression analyses, a Danish partner works with metabolomics analyses, and the industrial partner in England has worked extensively with meal analyses in a very large study in England in relation to being able to provide personal nutritional advice.”
Really happy about the funding and excited about the results
The applicants for such a network are assessed based on scientific quality, innovative ways of educating doctoral research fellows for a future career in and outside academia, and the ability to carry out main and sub-projects in the best way within the given frameworks.
Vice-Dean for Research and Researcher Education, Grete Dyb, congratulates Ulven on the funding and wishes her good luck! It is very difficult to make the cut regarding this type of Marie Curie funding.
The Vice-Dean is delighted that ten new doctoral research fellows will have the opportunity to take their PhD with Nutriome, and to gain experience for a future-oriented research education at MED together with the new network.