Financement de Projet de Recherche

Food safety is of major public health concern. In particular, contaminants in food, e.g. pesticides, antibiotics, are an important topic to deal with. Indeed, food can be contaminated through multiple sources. It starts from the very beginning with soil and water contamination, and ends with feeding. Obviously, all along the growth cycle, food contamination can move through the food chain. Furthermore, other processes of food production that poses a risk of contamination, for example packaging and its contact with food and plastic transfer through packaging and temperature variations, have to be taken into account. 

In this context, the aim of the RT2E 2023 call is to help support innovation, models or strategies, proof of concept, so as to reduce contaminants in consumed food and their effect in the food web: from ecosystems to humans. 

This Call for Proposals issued by Rovaltain will finance projects of 2-year duration with a total maximum budget of 40K euros. 

As mentioned above, toxic substances found in food originate from various sources, and the effects of these substances on human health are poorly understood. Topics to consider include agricultural practices, water quality and food packaging. Clearly, reducing food contamination is a major challenge. This call targets projects that address one or more of the following items: 

• Study of the effects of contaminants in food, alone or in mixtures, on ecosystem or human health: pesticides, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, plastics, additives, microbial contamination, etc. 
• Study of the transfer of toxic substances in the food web: from the ecosystem to the dinner plate. 
• Study of the effects of diet-borne toxic substances within the food web. 
• Study of the biodynamics of contaminant transfers: from ecosystems to humans. 
• Study of the production chain; for example, where does accumulation or reduction/dilution of contamination occur through the production chain? Which processing steps are best suited to reduce contamination in food? 

Examples of projects that would be particularly appreciated include: 

• Proposals targeting the development of innovative approaches to reduce contaminants “all along the process”, i.e. all the steps leading to food contamination, from ecosystem contamination or packaging, to final product (food consumed by humans). 
• Proposals addressing potential effects of climate change on food contamination. 
• Proposals addressing the effect of mixed contaminations in food, i.e. which mixtures occur, at which concentrations, what are the effects from the ecosystem to the dinner plate (human health). 
• Partnerships between natural and social science research teams to include considerations of regulatory and/or public engagement issues. 
• Projects dealing with eco-anxiety and food contamination. 

N.B. The call is open to ecotoxicological, toxicological, epidemiological, ecological or social sciences research teams. Projects including risk assessment and prediction, modelling, tools development like applications to reduce pesticide use / contaminants that may affect food would be particularly welcome. 

Intensive agricultural practices, the use of pesticides and the effects of global warming have had dramatic consequences on biodiversity and soil quality over the last decades. As a result, a significant decline in agricultural production quantity and quality is expected in the forthcoming years. Besides that, the use of additives and other allergens in processed foods has led to the development of numerous health issues, including many types of food intolerances and allergies.

How can we protect both human and ecosystem health when it comes to food ?

Together with devoting efforts to rethinking and revising the agricultural landscape and practices, it is also necessary to support the development of innovative applicable solutions able to provide healthy food for humans and to preserve the ecosystems.

In this context, the aim of the Call for Proposals 2023-2 is to support the development of innovative healthy, nutritious and ethical foods while preserving biodiversity.

This Call for Proposals issued by Rovaltain will finance one project of 2- or 3-years duration with a total maximum budget of 320,000 euros.

This call targets projects that address one or more of the following elements:

• Enhance biodiversity among neglected crop species of high nutritional value (quinoa, amaranth, etc).
• Develop food innovations without gluten and additives.

Eligibility of proposals :

• Projects based on biofortification will not be eligible.
• Projects must have one or several clearly identified objectives and the potential role to contribute to the development of future research projects.
• Projects must clearly present the environmental and societal goals, including an international scope to allow access to the results of this research by the populations of the most vulnerable countries.
• Including social and public outreach components in the project is encouraged. In order to promote the consumption of healthy, nutritious and ethical foods in people from all economic classes, public research dissemination efforts, including press releases, social media, blogs, to reach a broad audience should be considered.
• Projects carried out within or in close collaboration with public research laboratories are welcome.
• Projects may be led by a single team or involve several partner teams. The call for research projects is open to French research teams from higher education and research institutions, research organisations and public institutions with a research mission as well as non-profit accredited Social and Solidarity Economy companies or commercial companies of Social and Solidarity Economy. The concept of social and solidarity economy ESS*[1] refers to a set of companies organised in the form of cooperatives, mutual societies, associations, or foundations, whose internal functioning and activities are based on a principle of solidarity and social utility. The social and solidarity economy acquired a real legal status with the French law of 31 July 2014. National or international partners are welcome. Partners of another nature are also allowed, provided that they bring clearly demonstrated added value in the project.
• For ESS companies, the research and development program must be conducted in collaboration with public research laboratories. The funds allocated to the project will be paid to the project leader; he/she will manage the project’s funds for the entire collaboration and will compile and submit the scientific and financial reports at the end of the project.
• The project leader must not be a member of the Rovaltain Foundation (board of directors, scientific council, etc).
• The duration of the project, including the preparation and submission of the final report, must not exceed 36 months.
• The financial support provided by the Rovaltain Foundation will not exceed 320,000 euros.
• The project leader must participate in the promotion and demonstration activities organised by the Rovaltain Foundation during the project period and during the 12 months following its closure (maximum 2 solicitations).
• Proposals and reports must be written in English.

Human beings and living beings in general are exposed during their entire lifetime to environmental stressors, i.e., chemical, physical, biological and/or psychosocial stressors, what is also described as the “exposome”. Indeed, the conceptual framework of exposome for humans or eco-exposome for animals attempts to integrate all these exposures over time to help understand and decipher the causal links between exposure and pathologies. Research suggests that the early stages of life, e.g. foetus, embryo, young organism, are the most sensitive windows of exposure, e.g. the 1000-day window for humans from conception and equivalent early stages in other species.

In this context, the aim of the RT2E 2022 call is to help the development of new research projects through a leverage effect for deciphering the effects of early-life exposure to environmental stressors on the health and physiological balance of organisms.

The present call is aligned with the topic of a congress co-organised by the SFSE (“Société Francophone de Santé et Environnement”) and the Rovaltain Foundation in November, from the 23^th to 25^th, 2022 – “Early exposure to environmental factors: understanding the effects on ecosystems & human health”.

This Call for Proposals issued by Rovaltain would finance projects of 2-year duration with a total max. budget of 20K euros.

The effects of environmental factors on living beings exposed during the early stages of life is still under-addressed today. In particular, this window of exposure is known as crucial for development, and it is important to raise the question of consequences on further life stages in terms of the main physiological functions, e.g., reproduction, behaviour, feeding. This call targets projects that address one or more of the following elements :

Study of the effects of exposure to environmental stressors during the first stages of life in organisms:

• Study of the effects of chemical contaminants; in this case, only projects focusing on emerging contaminants will be considered.
• Study of the effects of other categories of stressors: physical, e.g., exposure to radiation, extreme temperatures, electromagnetism, noise; biological, e.g., exposure to viruses; psychosocial…
• Projects including potential effects of climate change would be particularly appreciated.
• Projects that address the question of early exposure to contaminants in socially deprived groups, e.g. people living close to industrial poles, refineries; study of the link between social inequality and incidence of pathologies, e.g. cancer, would be particularly appreciated.
• Partnerships with social science research teams to analyse regulatory and/or public engagement issues would be particularly appreciated.

N.B. The call is open to ecotoxicological, toxicological, epidemiological, ecological or social sciences research teams.

Le changement climatique est désormais inévitable. Une augmentation mondiale de la température d’au moins 2,5 degrés Celsius est prévue à l’horizon 2050. Cette augmentation de température va affecter de nombreux aspects de notre environnement et parmi eux, le devenir des polluants chimiques, les approches écotoxicologiques, et les pratiques et protocoles scientifiques dans le domaine. Basé sur des publications antérieures et un atelier organisé par la SETAC, le présent appel à propositions se concentre sur les systèmes terrestres et aquatiques face au réchauffement climatique et considère deux domaines majeurs : le devenir chimique et les mécanismes toxicologiques.

L’influence du changement climatique (CC) sur le domaine de l’écotoxicologie a été peu abordée, en particulier dans les sols. Par exemple, les paramètres environnementaux modifiés par le CC (température, précipitations, salinité, pH…) peuvent affecter la toxicocinétique de l’absorption, de la distribution, du métabolisme et de l’excrétion des produits chimiques, ainsi que les interactions toxicodynamiques entre les produits chimiques et les molécules cibles. Ainsi, le changement climatique peut modifier le potentiel écotoxique des contaminants ainsi que nos méthodes de mesure de leur écotoxicité.

The continuously growing global population, a scarcity of fossil fuels, diminishing supplies of raw materials and metals, climate change, biodiversity decline, poor water quality and social concerns will require changes in production, consumption and mobility in modern society. To address this challenge, the concept of a circular economy, including recycling and reuse, appears to be a promising path forward. Circular economy is an emerging concept aiming to move away from the traditional “take-make-dispose” approach and to decouple economic growth from natural resource consumption, allowing a societal evolution towards a sustainable future. However, despite important promises and expectations, questions about the environmental and human health implications of the Circular economy have not yet been explicitly addressed.

The present call focuses on the ecotoxicological consequences of a change towards a circular economy.

En Décembre 2018, la Fondation Rovaltain a diffusé un appel à projet de recherche en Santé et Environnement.

Le programme RT2E lancé en Décembre 2018 couvre le champ thématique : « effets des stress environnementaux sur la santé humaine ».

Le développement croissant des activités humaines conduit à l’émergence de stress environnementaux de nature chimique, physique ou biologiques susceptibles d’affecter la santé humaine, animale et/ou, végétale mais également le fonctionnement des écosystèmes. Afin de mieux évaluer, prévenir et remédier à ces risques, il est nécessaire de disposer de solides connaissances sur la caractérisation et le devenir, des contaminants physiques, chimiques ou biologiques dans l’environnement, ainsi que de leur produit de transformation.

L’appel à projets a pour objectif d’encourager le développement de nouveaux projets par un effet levier avec, en particulier, le développement de nouvelles méthodologies ou l’accroissement des connaissances sur la propagation des stress environnementaux et leur transmission intergénérationnelle.

Appel à projet de recherche en toxicologie environnementale et en écotoxicologie qui avait pour objectif le développement de connaissances fondamentales sur les effets que les stress environnementaux de toutes natures (i.e. chimiques, physiques et biologiques) considérés seuls ou en mélange, peuvent induire sur les organismes sauvages, leurs populations et le fonctionnement des écosystèmes. Les travaux proposés dans le cadre de cet appel à projets peuvent s’adresser à tous les types d’environnement (e.g. naturels, urbains, agricoles, industriels) et à tous les types de milieux (e.g. aquatiques, terrestres et aériens).

POLQUA

Moule zébrée ou moule quagga, identification génétique et comparaison des réponses biologiques aux stress : quelle implication en écotoxicologie ? par E DAVID, Université de Reims Champagne Ardennes, UMR-I 02 SEBIO.

CAPITAL

Global impact of CyAnobacteria Proliferation on the grazer compartment: from Individual To populAtion Level par T Sime-Ngando, Université Clermont-Ferrand Laboratoire Micro-organismes : génomes et environnement.

EpiRIP

Epigenetic stress resistance in an invasive pest species par C VIEIRA, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, UMR 5558.

PLAISCOOL

Exportation de déchets plastiques : quels impacts sur l’état de santé des coraux du golfe du Lion ? par F LARTAUD, Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls s/ Mer, LECOB UMR 8222.

EVAMINTOX

Evaluation of molecular and interfacial biophysical endpoints for nanoparticles toxicity toward bacteria par J DUVAL, Université de Lorraine, LIEC UMR7360.

PlanStress-MetalPTMs

Etude du rôle des modifications post-traductionnelles dans la tolérance et l’accumulation de cadmium dans la plante hyper-accumulatrice de métaux Arabidopsis halleri par S RAVANEL, Université Grenoble Alpes, LPCV.

ELISA

Evaluation de l’impact de différents facteurs de stress (polluants et pathogènes) sur le microbiote intestinal de l’abeille domestique Apis mellifera par H EL ALAOUI, Université de Clermont-Ferrand, UMR 6023.

I-RESPECT

Résistance aux insecticides, population et effet sur la biodiversité par M RAULT, Université d’Avignon, UMR 7263.

La Fondation assure la valorisation de programmes de recherche en santé et environnement et aide à la recherche d’un financement en assurant l’interface entre des structures privées porteuses de préoccupations sanitaires et environnementale et les acteurs de la recherche académique. Tous les projets sont evalués et soumis à l’approbation du conseil scientifique de la fondation. Soumissions acceptées tout au long de l’année.

La Fondation assure également le soutien de projets a visés de recherche et sociétales, portés par des associations, des fondations, ou tout autre structure à caractère non lucratif.