More than 350 projects launched, over 1,000 scientific outputs, and upwards of 150 companies involved: these figures define the scale of OnFoods. What they do not capture, however, is one of the most significant shifts that the event held on 30 April at Barilla set out to highlight.

Over these three years, research and industry have worked within shared processes. Activities developed in an interwoven fashion, defining problems, designing methods, running experiments. Companies took part in this process operationally, providing data, infrastructure and pilot plants, and helping to steer the direction of the research itself.

"We must not let these results disperse. We need to support technology transfer as ordinary, mature practice rather than something episodic. We must continue investing in skills and helping the productive sector absorb them. Now as ever, research is a matter of common good." With these words, Paolo Martelli - Rector of the University of Parma, the institution coordinating the entire project - opened the day, expressing the hope that the PNRR will not be treated as an unrepeatable parenthesis but as a starting point for renewed momentum, beginning today.

Many of the results were tested directly in applied settings. Food reformulation work is one example: more than 130 prototypes developed, with interventions across over 10 product categories. This work has produced measurable effects, including reductions in the sugar and salt content of consumers' weekly diets and the launch of new products already on the market.

"In OnFoods, we worked on a precise objective: bringing research and application into the same processes. This changes the way results emerge, because they are built from the outset within real contexts of use," said Daniele Del Rio, President of the OnFoods Foundation.

This approach has produced a varied set of solutions: more than 100 interventions on food quality and safety, over 200 solutions for sustainable distribution, tools for stakeholders, and studies on diverse populations to assess effects and acceptability.

Alongside industrial applications, the work has also generated systemic effects: the development of metrics for supply-chain sustainability, tools to inform public and private decision-making, food-procurement projects, and guidelines already adopted at regional level for institutional catering.

"Scientific quality remains the starting point, but on its own it is not enough. The evidence has to be tested in real-world contexts, while preserving rigour and remaining open to dialogue with other forms of knowledge and expertise," underlined Patrizia Riso, coordinator of the OnFoods scientific committee.

This shift has also made the very notion of research impact more explicit.

"In research we talk a great deal about impact, but we often make it hard to see. OnFoods forced us to accompany the evidence all the way through to application. But we need to be clear: outputs, outcomes and impact are not the same thing. Impact is what changes over time — in behaviours, in systems, in health - and it requires continuity beyond the lifespan of any single project," observed Hellas Cena of the University of Pavia, coordinator of OnFoods Spoke 6.

A substantial part of the work has been devoted to building skills. The mentorship programme operated as an ongoing training infrastructure, integrating scientific production, knowledge transfer and communication through seminars, workshops and co-design activities with companies.

"Research does not end with results. It calls for skills, relationships and the ability to apply what is learned. In OnFoods we have worked to put those conditions in place, bringing together training, research and openness to the outside world," remarked researcher Claudia Favari.

For companies, this has meant being involved in the earliest stages of research as well.

"Co-design at the lowest technology-readiness levels is decisive: that is where needs are shared. That awareness is now in place. But we mustn't lose sight of competitiveness," noted Michele Amigoni on behalf of Barilla.

From the standpoint of the PNRR partnerships, the experience has also revealed certain operating conditions, a point addressed by Danilo Ercolini, speaking in his dual capacity within OnFoods and the Agritech Center.

"What worked in the tandem between the two sister projects? First, a clear separation of objectives; and the fact that we collaborated with different companies ultimately made us complementary across the full disciplinary and applied spectrum - from field to human health, as the saying goes. No major issues emerged, but there is still room for improvement. Things flow more easily when solutions arise from direct engagement with industry; when the work involves more exploratory advances in knowledge, the process requires different timeframes and methods. And that is precisely the direction in which research partnerships are moving - toward greater convergence between research and industry."

The event "From Research to Impact," hosted at BITE — the Barilla Innovation & Technology Experience — also gave this kind of practice a tangible setting: a space where research, development and production coexist.

"We have made our expertise and infrastructure available to work on solutions that can be tested under real conditions. This makes it possible to bring research and production genuinely closer together," the Barilla Group reported.

At the institutional level, the project sits within a broader transformation.

"The PNRR has required public administration to change its approach: to work to objectives, schedules and execution capacity, often under unprecedented conditions. It has been an exercise in dialogue between administrative and scientific expertise," said Fabrizio Cobis of the Ministry of University and Research. "But it is not over: new instruments - such as the €50 million Synergy Grant call - are designed to strengthen complex projects built through networks linking the public sector and industry."