New Harvest’s Director Isha Datar recently attended the EPINET workshop on the issue of public funding and social shaping of cultured meat in Utrecht, the Netherlands, October 26-28th. EPINET is an EU funded project under the seventh framework program, coordinated by the Centre for the studies of the sciences and humanities, University of Bergen, Norway. Isha was invited to take part in this project for the unique role that New Harvest plays in terms of finding public funding and connecting researchers.
The discussion included many members of the New Harvest’s board and the cultured meat community: Mark Post of Maastricht University, Stig Omholt of the previous In Vitro Meat Consortium, Julie Gold of Chalmers University of Technology, Bernard Roelen and Henk Haagsman of Utrecht University, Marianne Ellis of the University of Bath, Clemens Driessen and Cor Van Der Weele of Wageningen University, Hanna Tuomisto of the Joint Research Council at the European Commission, and Neil Stephens form Cardiff University.
Lots of excellent discussion about what meat is, cultured meat vs. in vitro meat, the technical challenges that cultured meat faces, and the public shaping challenges ahead.
Very importantly, there was discussion about the Horizon 2020 funding scheme being introduced by the European Commission later this year. This funding scheme is a follow up to the FP7 funding scheme, and it is a funding program for research and innovation among European Commission member states. With guidance for how cultured meat could be applicable to the grants being offered, the EPINET project was of great use to New Harvest and the community members in attendance.
Photo taken by Isha of Utrecht University’s Faculty Club, where the meeting took place.