CIRCLES - Controlling mIcRobiomes CircuLations for bEtter food Systems

With an ever-increasing global population, one of the challenges of our time is to sustain and improve the provision of food. Understanding microbiomes is the next big scientific frontier: this understanding has a huge potential in providing meaningful individual and public health solutions, impacting climate change and helping transform our food systems. The CIRCLES project aims to unlock the potential of microbiomes within our food systems and focuses on producing healthier and more sustainable foods.

CIRCLES will explore new ways to exploit natural microbiomes for sustainable food production by learning from observing nature and implementing microbiome applications. More specifically, CIRCLES will explore microbiome interactions and circulations across six food chains, exploring agriculture (spinach and tomatoes), husbandry (poultry and swine) and marine fishes (farmed & wild salmon, and farmed & wild seabream). The project engages European citizens and workers in these food chains to help them better understand microbiome dynamics, impacting their lives.

The multi-actor consortium consists of 30 organisations, coming from 14 EU countries. They use their complementary expertise to bridge existing knowledge gaps and find solutions for future food challenges. CIRCLES spans from lab research to the development of new market-ready food products. The project started in 2018 and will last until 2024.

Food chains explored within the CIRCLES project

EUFIC communicates and disseminates about the project, making sure to engage the public, informing them about the importance of the microbiome impacting our daily lives, also by empowering the CIRCLES consortium to communicate effectively about CIRCLES. The communication and dissemination activities also target stakeholders, maximising the impact of the project results.

To achieve this, EUFIC developed the project’s website, feeding it with the latest news from CIRCLES microbiome research, project activities and targeted communication materials, such as audio-visual content. EUFIC also coordinates social media outreach and outreach to the press, including specialised magazines. In addition, EUFIC engages stakeholders via several online platforms, collaborations and events.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 818290.

These are the most important communication and dissemination activities:  

Communicating & disseminating project results to different audiences via numerous outputs (e.g., leaflets, video interviews, infographics), project channels (e.g., website, social media, e-newsletter) and external channels, such as media.

Organising city tours to engage citizens in microbiome research, for example, with hands-on activities in which they explore the microbiome that surrounds them such as the marine microbiome or their skin microbiome.

Engaging stakeholders, for example by reaching out to specialised media.

Screenshot of an article in the magazine AgroFOOD Industry Hi-Tech

Engaging the Microbiome Community of the Sustainable Food Systems Network, leading a group of community ambassadors and activating the community with posts and newsletters. CIRCLES is also part of the Microbiomes4Life project cluster.

Screenshot of Microbiome Community in the Sustainable Food Systems Network

EUFIC will organise the final conference of the project in 2024.

• Marie-Christine Thurm, Collaborative Projects Manager, EUFIC
• Twitter: #CIRCLESEU / @SciFoodHealth
• Instagram: @microbesforlife