On 30 April 2026, the final event of OnFoods will take place at BITE – Barilla Innovation & Technology Experience in Parma. OnFoods is the extended partnership funded by the PNRR and focused on sustainability, safety and nutrition within the food system.

The event represents both a moment of synthesis of more than three years of work and an opportunity to reflect on one of the most relevant aspects that emerged from the project: how the relationship between scientific research and the production system has been rethought.

Throughout its activities, OnFoods, together with the companies involved in the project, moved beyond a linear view of technology transfer (from research to industry), building instead a more continuous and reciprocal model of collaboration.

Universities, research centres and companies worked within a shared context, in which knowledge production and its application developed in an integrated and interconnected way.

This approach led to the involvement of more than 150 companies across the entire agri-food value chain, from large enterprises to SMEs, which participated in the partnership’s activities in different ways and with varying levels of integration.

The companies involved were not only recipients of results, but actively contributed to shaping research trajectories by participating in the definition of case studies, providing plants and production contexts, and collaborating in the validation of solutions. Collaboration took different forms, ranging from the joint development of new products and processes, to the optimisation of existing solutions, to experimentation in real-world environments and the sharing of data and infrastructure.

At the same time, research provided tools, methods and analytical capabilities to address complex challenges related to sustainability, quality and safety within food systems.

This was not a straightforward process. Bringing together worlds that operate with different timelines, languages and objectives required continuous mediation: between the need for research to explore and deepen, and the need for companies to apply, test and scale solutions within timeframes compatible with the market. It is precisely within this space of dialogue—sometimes involving mutual adjustment—that a more mature and aware model of collaboration has taken shape.

The event will bring together a wide range of actors who have been part of this journey: representatives from academia, large companies and SMEs, public institutions at local, regional and national levels, as well as researchers involved across the different areas of the project.

The programme will include an initial session of institutional remarks and framing, followed by a discussion among representatives of research and industry, focused on the results achieved and the future perspectives of the relationship between scientific innovation and the production system.