The collaboration platform Plant2Food will be a hub for researchers and companies who want to collaborate to solve some of the complex issues of developing plant-based foods – without taking out patents based on the results.
Plant2Food is an Open Innovation in Science platform focusing on open research collaboration. This means that the universities and companies joining the platform agree to publish all results from the open research projects and waive any claim to intellectual property rights. This will enable researchers and companies to co-develop project ideas and to accelerate projects faster by starting them immediately when a research group and a company agree to explore an idea. The open approach also gives everyone the opportunity to further develop the results and potentially use them for commercial purposes.
Plant2Food will focus on developing basic knowledge about the properties of crops and how they can be used in food products. This knowledge can subsequently be used further up the value chain to develop nutritious products that are attractive to consumers.
The partners in Plant2Food are:
- Aarhus University
- University of Copenhagen
- Technical University of Denmark
- Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands
- Food & Bio Cluster Denmark
The Foundation is supporting Plant2Food with up to DKK 200 million (€27 million) over a five-year period. 80% of the grant is allocated to funding research projects awarded in open competition through the platform. The remaining 20% will fund secretariat services and networking and matchmaking activities.
This is the second time the Foundation has supported the development of an Open Innovation in Science platform. In 2020, the Foundation awarded DKK 54.5 million for the Open Discovery Innovation Network (ODIN), which has the pharma and biotech industry as its focal point.
