Consumer Lab: Building academic-industry partnerships to ensure sustained acceptance of healthy foods

消费者实验室：建立学术与行业合作伙伴关系，确保健康食品持续被接受

• 批准号: BB/X010805/1
• 负责人: Jeffrey Brunstrom
• 金额: $ 43.04万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FX010805%2F1
• 关键词: Consumer; Lab; Building; academic; industry

Poor diet has a dramatic impact on the prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. In response, researchers can innovate to improve the nutritional quality of food. However, these efforts are wasted if new and reformulated foods are rejected by consumers. The UK can claim considerable expertise in fundamental research on the biological, social, and psychological controls of food choice and dietary behaviour. However, data are often collected in a laboratory and from unrepresentative samples (e.g., university students), and studies rarely account for changes in preference that are known to occur over time. Industry and researchers need better tools to understand food choice and to measure the 'real world' acceptability of food products, and how preference is moderated by changes to their packaging, labelling, and context within which they are made available. Our hub will transform opportunities for product innovation by addressing these long-standing concerns around 'ecological validity' and whether acute changes in consumer behaviour are preserved over time. Our vision is to develop a distributed UK-wide 'Consumer Lab', comprising a network of industry and academic members and a portfolio of interdisciplinary methods that can be combined to provide high-quality information about food choice and dietary behaviours in real-world settings such as in the home, cafés, and school canteens. We will forge academic-industry partnerships that assess behaviour over long time periods and incorporate multiple lines of evidence (e.g., supermarket loyalty-card data combined with direct observation), thereby improving the quality of evidence we can garner. As part of this process, we will seek out opportunities to develop partnerships that incorporate novel methods of data capture, including, for example, the use of covert digital image capture, ecological momentary assessments, metabolic markers, continuous blood-glucose measurement, and wearable monitoring devices. Recognising marginalised and 'hard to reach' communities, we will prioritise methods and research aimed at studying food choice in these groups, thereby enabling the food industry to address their specific needs. In developing Consumer Lab, we will bridge the gap between bioscience research and translation. Through academic-industry partnerships our research priorities will be informed by the challenges faced by the food industry and provide actionable outputs and impact. Projects developed across our network will address sector challenges, and training for ECRs will develop a cohort of researchers with sector-relevant skills who are prepared for collaboration. Because food choice is key to other hubs' activities, we will promote our Consumer Lab as an essential platform that can be accessed and shared across the OIRC network. In addition, recognising that consumer evaluation forms a key element of many translational pathways, from the outset, we will establish a separate Hub Outreach Committee, that actively promotes our Consumer Lab to non-OIRC groups. Our hub brings together an experienced multi-site (Bristol and Leeds) team that comprises complementary academic and industry-relevant experience, together with considerable expertise in the day-to-day management of networks of this kind. We have an exceptional Advisory Panel that represents expertise from several different universities and food companies, and NatCen, Britain's leading centre for independent social research. We have also identified an initial hub membership, which we plan to expand via a range of networking and knowledge-exchange activities, including workshops and training for early career researchers in academia and in industry.

不良饮食对肥胖、糖尿病、心血管疾病和癌症等非传染性疾病的患病率产生巨大影响。为此，研究人员可以进行创新以提高食品的营养质量。然而，如果新的和重新配制的食品被消费者拒绝，这些努力就会白费。英国在食物选择和饮食行为的生物、社会和心理控制方面的基础研究方面拥有丰富的专业知识。然而，数据通常是在实验室中从不具有代表性的样本（例如大学生）中收集的，并且研​​究很少考虑已知随着时间的推移而发生的偏好变化。行业和研究人员需要更好的工具来了解食品选择并衡量食品“现实世界”的可接受性，以及如何通过改变包装、标签和提供食品的环境来调节偏好。我们的中心将通过解决围绕“生态有效性”以及消费者行为的急剧变化是否随着时间的推移而持续存在的长期担忧，从而改变产品创新的机会。我们的愿景是开发一个分布式的英国范围内的“消费者实验室”，由行业和学术成员网络以及跨学科方法组合组成，这些方法可以结合起来提供有关家庭、咖啡馆和学校食堂等现实环境中食物选择和饮食行为的高质量信息。我们将建立学术与行业合作伙伴关系，评估长期行为并纳入多种证据（例如，超市会员卡数据与直接观察相结合），从而提高我们可以获得的证据的质量。作为这一过程的一部分，我们将寻求机会发展结合新数据捕获方法的合作伙伴关系，包括使用隐蔽数字图像捕获、生态瞬时评估、代谢标记、连续血糖测量和可穿戴监测设备。认识到边缘化和“难以接触”的社区，我们将优先考虑旨在研究这些群体的食物选择的方法和研究，从而使食品行业能够满足他们的特定需求。在开发消费者实验室时，我们将弥合生物科学研究和翻译之间的差距。通过学术与行业的合作，我们的研究重点将了解食品行业面临的挑战，并提供可行的成果和影响。我们网络中开发的项目将解决行业挑战，ECR 培训将培养一批具有行业相关技能、为合作做好准备的研究人员。由于食物选择对于其他中心的活动至关重要，因此我们将把我们的消费者实验室推广为可在 OIRC 网络上访问和共享的重要平台。此外，认识到消费者评估是许多转化途径的关键要素，从一开始，我们将建立一个单独的中心外展委员会，积极向非 OIRC 团体推广我们的消费者实验室。我们的中心汇集了经验丰富的多站点（布里斯托尔和利兹）团队，其中包括互补的学术和行业相关经验，以及此类网络日常管理方面的丰富专业知识。我们拥有一个出色的顾问小组，代表来自几所不同大学和食品公司的专业知识，以及英国领先的独立社会研究中心 NatCen。我们还确定了初步的中心成员资格，我们计划通过一系列网络和知识交流活动来扩大其规模，包括为学术界和工业界的早期职业研究人员举办研讨会和培训。

项目成果

Translational research to identify solutions to the UK's key diet, health and nutrition challenges: The Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club Innovation Hubs.

旨在确定英国主要饮食、健康和营养挑战解决方案的转化研究：饮食和健康开放创新研究俱乐部创新中心。

• DOI: 10.1111/nbu.12637
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Nutrition bulletin
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: Stanner S