EuroFIR AISBL - Annual Report 2015

EuroFIR Association Internationale sans but lucratif (AISBL) was founded in 2009 by the EuroFIR Network of Excellence (EU FP6) and, following EuroFIR NEXUS, has evolved into a financially independent Association based in Brussels (BE). Many of the original 47 EuroFIR partners are members of the EuroFIR AISBL, but we have also broadened our membership to include small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as academic and research organisations, and individuals including students from the food and health sector. In 2015, for the first time, numbers of new organisation members exceeded the existing numbers of full members.

EuroFIR has used its position in Brussels to further strengthen its links with European Institutions (e.g., DG Santé, European Parliament, EFSA, and JRC IRMM), as well as leading food and trade associations, such as EUFIC and ILSI Europe, other non-governmental organisations, and industry. This widens reach toward our stakeholder base and potential new members, as well as opportunities to be involved in new EU-funded and other projects. We are collaborating with both EUFIC and ILSI in RICHFIELDS and IFAAM, respectively, which gives added value and networking capabilities. We were invited to give a talk at the World Associations Conference last year (Lausanne, CH) and will also be present at the European event this year in Brussels (BE, 1st June 2016).

There are two main avenues for EuroFIR to develop in the coming years. Firstly, we will continue to identify suitable EU-funded research projects where food composition data and our expertise and knowledge can be included, especially different new EU Programmes, such as Health and Research Infrastructures. In particular, our efforts to be integrated and/or aligned with the emerging RIs, such as RICHFIELDS and MetroFood, and DISH-RI should bring opportunities to embed food data and tools in virtual RIs in the health and food or agriculture domains, which should be sustainable in their own right. This brings both funding to support and develop the food information and data at the European level and links to related data and tools for intake and other nutritional aspects, as well as helping national food composition database compilers sustain their national activities.

Secondly, we aim to extend our commercial products with new customers in the food and health arena, either directly or via the newly launched Quisper Foundation (NL). This is offering an extended service around personalised nutritional advice for individuals and biotech developers, specifically SMEs. A financial model is being developed that will offer costs based on the data values being used by customers for dietary intake assessment in large studies; a reasonable return to EuroFIR can be expected, with a proportion returned to national compilers where the data are being used. Both of these approaches should help significantly with a longer-term sustainable financial model for EuroFIR AISBL, potentially increase our ordinary membership, and further reduce the membership fees.