Novel foods - research, innovation and sustainability, jellyfish as a resource

Activity Overview

Type: Conference
Start Date: October 21, 2015
End Date: October 21, 2015
Venue: Universal Exposition EXPO 2015, Milano (Italy)
Contact: Antonella Leone
E-mail: antonella.leone [at] ispa.cnr.it

Funding Call: EuroMarine 2014 Call for Proposals
Decision Body: EuroMarine Steering Committee
Total Budget: €8,000
Funds Granted: €5,000

Manager(s): Antonella Leone
Co-organiser(s): Stefano Piraino, Veronica Fuentes

The event is to be held in October 2015 at the International EXPO in Milan, Italy. The aim of the event is to address the sustainable supply of food, including sustainable resources from the oceans, by gathering existing information in terms of international research and opportunities for the exploitation of new marine resource.

The symposium will evaluate the potential of exploiting jellyfish biomass for food and feed, as well as for blue biotechnology purposes. Scientific knowledge in the field of new marine resources will be disseminated through keynote lectures. Videos and images illustrating the research and activities related to new foods (jellyfish, microalgae, and other invertebrates) will be exhibited. The symposium will provide high visibility and added value to existing projects by providing new perspectives to jellyfish blooms as a sustainable food source to face overfishing of traditional resources. With an estimated 250 participants, knowledge transfer across a wide range of groups is expected, fostering future research and introducing society to this issue.

Famous chefs prepare Jellyfish as fine cuisine as part of the outreach event to the greater public

Scientists and experts reported on the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on jellyfish worldwide and using jellyfish and other novel foods for human consumption. Over 2000 dissemination leaflets, posters and other informative material was made available. A social media strategy built a community of readers around the research topics and their social impacts, and a thematic website, twitter account and blog disseminated disclosure articles and scientific information among the general public. Public engagement before, during and after the conference was tracked and the tweets reached 32,099 audience impressions. Overall the conference was highly successful, focusing the attention of the general public on marine research and EuroMarine policy. It raised awareness of transdisciplinary approaches to the sustainability of food resources since climate change and the availability of marine living resources are increasingly linked to the issues of food security and nutrition related problems.

A programme called WikiExpo will continue through 2016 by collecting material on the event and will elaborate and disseminate the material.

Updates

Jan 2018 - The ideas and connections established in the foresight workshop are being explored through the successfully funded Horizon2020 project GoJelly.

Sep 2019 - GoJelly has been producing a number of exciting results and outputs, and was featured in a Politico article celebrating their innovative use of jellyfish slime to capture microplastics. A full list of their outputs, media releases and more is available at the project webpage.