Founded in 1088, the Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (UNIBO) is known as the oldest University of the western world. Nowadays, the University of Bologna still remains one of the most important institutions of higher education across Europe and the second largest university in Italy with 11 Schools, 32 Departments and more than 85.000 students.
The UNIBO research groups involved in the INGREEN project belongs to 3 Departments namely i) the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DISTAL), ii) the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Material Engineering (DICAM) and iii) the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology (FaBiT). Rosalba Lanciotti, scientific coordinator of the INGREEN project and associate professor at DISTAL. The research activities of this department cover various topics mainly related to the vegetable and animal food production, including food microbiology and technology, quality, safety, traceability and chemical analysis, as well as legal and marketing aspects. The department is currently involved in several national and international projects. Moreover, DISTAL hosts the “Inter-Department Centre of Food Industrial Research (CIRI-Agro-Alimentare), specifically devoted to the technology transfer to food industry, and particularly to SMEs.
Research and Innovation are a priority of the University’s mission. It has an active patent portfolio of over 400 patents, related to more than 100 inventions. UNIBO has gained a considerable experience in International and European research projects, successfully participating in FP7: 58 coordinated projects on 274 projects funded in 2007-2013. In Horizon 2020, it is so far involved in 162 funded projects (39 as coordinator) with more than 57ML Euros of funding.
Role in INGREEN:
- Leading the Scientific and Technical Management
- Leading the set up and optimisation of tailor made biotechnological processes to produce LBA enriched whey, Y. lipolytica biomasses from whey and pre-fermented ingredients from rye and wheat milling fractions
- Supporting the characterization of ingredients for food, nutraceutical/cosmetic/pharmaceutical sectors
- Supporting Mambelli, Pivetti and Barilla in whey and bran supply optimization and pre-treatments for LBA, Y. lipolytica biomasses, pre-fermented ingredient productions
- Producing and characterizing the bio-based food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and nutraceutical prototypes
- Evaluating the bio-based bag in box performances in food (safety, shelf-life, sensory properties and some of the functional features of the packed products)
- Demonstrating the technology for selected food, pharma/ cosmetic/ nutraceutical prototypes and screening of the performances of bio-based ingredients and final products
- Supporting TECNO, SKG-FR to demonstration the bio-based PHA bag in box, evaluate the performances of the selected prototypes in up-scaled environment
- Identifying the potential risks and hazardous agents of the products and processes and assessing the regulatory and standards compliance and the SOP Definition
- Contributing to the exploitation strategy, business case and dissemination
