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INNOVATION
Cognitive Robotic System for Digitalized and Networked (Automated) Insect Farms
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Market Maturity: Market Ready
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Market Creation Potential
This innovation was assessed by the JRC’s Market Creation Potential indicator framework as having a High” level of Market Creation Potential. Only innovations that are showing multiple signals of market creation potential are assigned a value under this indicator system. Learn more
Go to Market needs
Needs that, if addressed, can increase the chances this innovation gets to (or closer to) the market incude:
  • Prepare for Market entry
  • Secure capital
  • Scale-up market opportunities
Location of Key Innovators developing this innovation
Key Innovators
UN Sustainable Development Goals(SDG)
This innovation contributes to the following SDG(s)
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 2
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

The UN explains: "It is time to rethink how we grow, share and consume our food.

If done right, agriculture, forestry and fisheries can provide nutritious food for all and generate decent incomes, while supporting people-centred rural development and protecting the environment.

Right now, our soils, freshwater, oceans, forests and biodiversity are being rapidly degraded. Climate change is putting even more pressure on the resources we depend on, increasing risks associated with disasters such as droughts and floods. Many rural women and men can no longer make ends meet on their land, forcing them to migrate to cities in search of opportunities.

A profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed if we are to nourish today’s 815 million hungry and the additional 2 billion people expected by 2050.

The food and agriculture sector offers key solutions for development, and is central for hunger and poverty eradication."

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 9
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

The UN explains: "Investments in infrastructure – transport, irrigation, energy and information and communication technology – are crucial to achieving sustainable development and empowering communities in many countries. It has long been recognized that growth in productivity and incomes, and improvements in health and education outcomes require investment in infrastructure."

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 13
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

The UN explains: "Affordable, scalable solutions are now available to enable countries to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies. The pace of change is quickening as more people are turning to renewable energy and a range of other measures that will reduce emissions and increase adaptation efforts."

The EU-funded Research Project
This innovation was developed under the Horizon 2020 project CoRoSect with an end date of 31/03/2024
  • Read more about this project on CORDIS
Description of Project CoRoSect
By 2030 over 9 billion people, along with animals raised for food or kept as companions, will need to be fed generating inconsistencies between the demand and supply of food resources and promoting food insecurity by rendering food as unavailable, unaffordable, unevenly distributed or unsafe to eat. Therefore, food security represents the big challenge of the 21st century and in that context one promising potential sustainable solution is insect farming. Edible insects are set to be approved in EU by late 2020 as novel food and insects also being a value food sources for farming animals; however research, innovation, farming protocols development and standardization, and a technology leap by robotizing and automatizing the mass rearing in insect farms is needed in order to concurrently scale the production and dramatically decrease the production costs. CoRoSect addresses the dramatic need of coupling research on bionomics and life cycle of insects intended to be used as food and feed, with new robotic tools and protocols for mechanization and automation of insect farming, which is a critical point stressed by the Technical Expert Consultation on Assessing the Potential of Insects as Food and Feed in Assuring Food Security. CoRoSect forms a novel integrated cognitive robotic ecosystems where the repetitive but also cognitively and physically demanding tasks requiring increased manual effort or continuous human supervision during the insects’ lifecycle, are replaced by automatic robotic-based procedures which will also draw upon research performed on understanding biological, technical and economic requirements of insect rearing and optimizing all involved processes. Focusing on real insect rearing problems, CoRoSect technologies will evaluated through large-scale pilots in 5 insect farms placed in 5 European countries rearing three of the most commonly occurring species, thereby contributing essentially to a secure and sustainable food supply in Europe.

Innnovation Radar's analysis of this innovation is based on data collected on 06/09/2023.
The unique id of this innovation in the European Commission's IT systems is: 115020