Università di Catania

UNICT educational system is run and overseen by 17 Departments, a Medical School and 2 other educational units, respectively located in the city of Ragusa - as far as Modern Languages are concerned - and in Syracuse for the School of Architecture. Another special unit is the Scuola Superiore di Catania, a higher education centre based on excellence that was founded in 1998 for the selection and the recognition of the brightest young minds, offering a variety of studies including analysis, research and experimentation. The Scuola has its own laboratories and invests in industrial research in collaboration with many firms of the “Etna Valley”. It offers innovative courses at the highest level: pre-undergraduate additional teaching, Masters, Advanced Post-graduate and Ph.D. programmes.

UNICT has a long experience of participation, both as coordinator and/or partner, to national and international projects, including (but not limited to) Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, PRIMA, and many other Italian and European research and training programs, related to all scientific fields (such as ERA-NET actions, INTERREG programmes, LIFE+, ITALIA-MALTA projects, ENI ITALIE-TUNISIE projects. ERASMUS+ initiative, etc.). In the last 5 years, about 300 projects have been funded, with a total financial contribution of almost € 47.000.000,00.

UNICT comprises various departments and researchers with multidisciplinary backgrounds covering different areas of the agri-food and human nutrition sciences. The researchers from UNICT involved in this proposal have an interdisciplinary background optimally matched with the needs of the project and the overall organisation of the spokes. Researchers dealing with food-related tasks provide expertise in agricultural economics, food sustainability, and marketing of local products. Researchers involved in nutrition-related tasks have medical and biological background with expertise in general public and clinical nutrition.

UNICT is involved in numerous formal collaborations with national and international public and private institutions and companies working in the area of food and human nutrition. Concerning research collaborations, UNICT researchers involved in the present project have published with the most important international universities bearing a specific research interest in food science and human nutrition. Of relevance, the collaboration as members of Global Nutrition and Policy Consortium study group (Tuft University, Boston, US), members of the Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) Risk Factors study group (Imperial College of London, London, UK), members of the Global Burden of Disease Study group (University of Washington, Seattle, US), and the presidency of the Food and Nutrition Section of the European Public Health Association. Among national collaborations, it is worth mentioning the participation in the review process for the Italian guidelines for the Levels of Reference Intake of Nutrients and Energy for the Italian Population (LARN) of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition.