Accelerating the transition from animal-based to alternative dietary proteins – the dietary shift – is key to reducing the footprint of our food system in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), energy, water and land use, and other relevant environmental impacts, and for improving the health and well-being of people, animals and the planet. GIANT LEAPS delivers the strategic innovations, methodologies, and open-access datasets to speed up this dietary shift, in line with the Farm-to-Fork strategy and contributing to the Green Deal target of reaching climate neutrality by 2050. Achieving the dietary shift in practice is inherently complex due to the diverse set of actors involved and further hindered by major knowledge gaps, scattered across the various alternative protein sources and the domains of health (safety, allergenicity and digestibility), environment (GHGs and other environmental and climate impacts, biodiversity, circularity), and/or barriers to adoption (technological, sensory, and consumer acceptance). The GIANT LEAPS consortium consists of the key actors and spans all expertise to address relevant knowledge gaps and proactively engages to arrive at optimized future diets based on alternative proteins that are broadly accepted across stakeholder groups. In order to deliver required insights for short-, mid- and long-term decision making and impact, GIANT LEAPS protein sources have been selected for either targeted or full assessment based on their current level of specification. The innovations and improved methods combined with accessible and comprehensive information, generated for a wide collection of alternative proteins, will enable policymakers to prioritise changes in the food system towards the dietary shift based on desired impact, value chain actors to make strategic scientific, business and investment choices, and the general public to make more sustainable and healthy dietary choices.

This research project endeavours to pioneer a biological solution for mitigating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from effluent gases produced by bioenergy combustion systems. The primary focus is on converting the captured CO2 into carbon-negative energy carriers, specifically emphasizing the photosynthetic conversion of biogenic CO2 into energy-rich biomass. The transformation of this biomass into widely used renewable energy carriers, such as biocrude and biogas, is targeted, with an additional emphasis on enriching these carriers with renewable hydrogen to achieve carbon circularity. The project is structured to address key aspects, including; efficient biogenic CO2 capture from effluent systems, development of resilient microalgae strains to enhance resistance to flue gas toxicity, novel biomass pre-treatment methods for cell disruption and nitrogen removal (concurrent production of biostimulants), and improvements in the efficiency and sustainability of hydrothermal liquefaction (biocrude), anaerobic digestion (biogas) and hydrogenotropic conversion of CO2 to biomethane. The ultimate goal is to validate the viability of the developed direct CO2 fixation methods through integration with effluent systems at a pilot scale, reaching TRL5. This multifaceted approach underscores the project's commitment to advancing sustainable and efficient methods for biogenic CO2 fixation and subsequent conversion into renewable energy carriers. To assess the economic viability, a detailed techno-economic analysis of the proposed carbon capture and use solution will be conducted. Furthermore, sustainability and social impact assessments will be performed, taking into account circular economy principles and addressing social, economic, and environmental aspects in alignment with the priorities outlined in the European Green Deal.

XTREMOLIFE will accelerate the bioprospection & biodiscovery of novel extremophile microorganisms. XTREMOLIFE uniqueness is advancing next-generation sampling technologies tailored for extreme conditions: [1] Enhanced Ferrybox for boats (self-operating), [2] novel XTREMOsensor for hand-held use, and [3] automated microscopic imagery identification. In addition, we explore (a large) biodiversity from 3 extremophilic ecosystems by bioprospecting across 5 regions (Route 1), and 5 untapped culture collections (Route 2). We will join those two routes by identifying promising extremophilic microorganisms, produced metabolites, elucidating their bioactivity and structure, optimizing their cultivation, and guaranteeing a baseline pathway towards full exploitation. We will focus on microalgae, cyanobacteria, and their associated microbiome, with a particular interest in bacteria and fungi. The culture collections NORCCA (Norway), ACUF (Italy), BEA (Spain), LEGE-CC (Portugal), TII (Abu Dhabi/UAE) will be prospected. In parallel, we will assess the microbiome and plan sampling from 5 locations: [1] Antarctic, [2] Volcanic aquatic environments in Canary Island, [3]Azores, [4]Mexico, and [5] Abu Dhabi: focusing on hypersaline and extremely hot springs. We will assess the complexity of extremophilic ecology resorting to physical, chemical and biological data gathered. The chemical prospection will cover bioassays in the human, fish and plant health fields. Bioactive compounds will be isolated, and their structure fully characterized. Together, the consortium will select up to 7 different microbial compounds of interest-producing strains to be cultivated at lab scale, followed by a scale up to TRL 5 (feeding an Exploitation Roadmap). Finally, XTREMOLIFE will cover the legal framework of sampling, preserving and exploiting genetic material. The pathway towards full industrial exploitation (5-10 years after the project) in the various markets of applications will be characterized.

ALLIANCE aims to broaden the uptake of microalgae-based products in the EU market, improving the cost-effectiveness, circularity, and overall sustainability of production, processing and product development steps. Our ambition is to demonstrate the effective establishment of algae-based mid-value ingredients using multi-product biorefineries for food, cellular agriculture, aquafeed, and agriculture sectors. Previous sustainability and cost analyses clearly pointed at our R&I targets: recirculating nutrients and water, ALLIANCE aims to expand access to microalgae-based products in the EU market, making it cheaper and more sustainable. Our ambition is to demonstrate multiproduct biorefineries for food, aquafeed, and agriculture ingredients. Our previous sustainability and cost analyses clearly pointed at our R&I targets: recirculating nutrients and water, efficient and automated control of production, reducing nutrient consumption, prioritizing renewable energy and off-the-grid operation, and solvent-free biorefinery processes. We will focus on vertical integration of upstream and downstream processes, developing and demonstrating technological solutions on the targets above for four different existing algae pipelines, which will expand from 4 into 15 lines of fractions/products (and near-zero waste). ALLIANCE will use solvent-free extraction and purification technologies that are scalable and cost-competitive, as well as wet-biomass, bypassing the dewatering process. The ingredients will feed an integrated exploitation strategic plan to identify different business cases and their timelines and markets. We will work in a multidisciplinary and multi-actor approach, with a broad group of stakeholders joining us in reaching European consumers and supporting the penetration and acceptance of microalgal biobased products. Finally, we will collaborate with policy-making communities to propose concrete solutions for addressing gaps in legislation and regulatory frameworks.

REALM will transform nutrient-rich drain waters from soilless farms into value, by producing microalgae at reduced costs while treating water and capturing CO2 from the air. This concept will increase the circularity and profitability of microalgal production and soilless farming. The NordAqua and ALGACYCLE projects (NordForsk and EEA, respectively) have shown the feasibility of this concept in Finland and Portugal, and now REALM aims to demonstrate it at an industrial scale. Accordingly, two validation facilities will be installed in the Netherlands and Finland, and two demonstration facilities will be deployed in Portugal and Spain near soilless greenhouses. With know-how from the SABANA project (H2020), these facilities will operate photobioreactors under a turbidostatic regime (continuous harvest) for maximum productivity, using nutrient-rich wastewaters from the greenhouses. Growth and harvesting units will be powered by photovoltaic energy and automatically managed by novel sensors, while A.I.-based predictive models and a cloud-based monitoring system will assist production. Microalgal biomass will be processed by local downstream processing units using dairy industry supply chain as a working model. This concept will offer sustainable wastewater treatment technology to farmers by closing the nutrient loop and is expected to reduce microalgae production costs by >50%, whose savings will be used to increase the competitiveness of the proposed microalgae-based products, namely agrochemicals and aquafeed. A business model will be developed to propose the installation of multiple microalgae production facilities, next to soilless greenhouses, and connected to a centralised processing facility. The results generated by REALM will be disseminated so the demonstrated concept can be replicated by relevant stakeholders in all EU, while targeting several objectives established by the European Green Deal, such as working with nature to improve human health by promoting a greener industry.