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INNOVATION
Bioinoculum SMM (Smart Microbiome Modulator) for agriculture
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Market Maturity: Business Ready
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Market Creation Potential
This innovation was assessed by the JRC’s Market Creation Potential indicator framework as addressing the needs of existing markets and existing customers. Learn more
Women-led innovation
A woman had a leadership role in developing this innovation in at least one of the Key Innovator organisations listed below.
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
  • 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 12
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

The UN explains: "Sustainable consumption and production is about promoting resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all. Its implementation helps to achieve overall development plans, reduce future economic, environmental and social costs, strengthen economic competitiveness and reduce poverty.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 15
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat deertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

The UN explains: "Forests cover 30 per cent of the Earth’s surface and in addition to providing food security and shelter, forests are key to combating climate change, protecting biodiversity and the homes of the indigenous population. Thirteen million hectares of forests are being lost every year while the persistent degradation of drylands has led to the desertification of 3.6 billion hectares."

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 17
Strengthen the means of implementations and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

The UN explains: "A successful sustainable development agenda requires partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. These inclusive partnerships built upon principles and values, a shared vision, and shared goals that place people and the planet at the centre, are needed at the global, regional, national and local level."

The EU-funded Research Project
This innovation was developed under the Horizon 2020 project CIRCLES with an end date of 31/10/2024
  • Read more about this project on CORDIS
Description of Project CIRCLES
CIRCLES aims to discover and translate innovative microbiomes-tailored circular actions into concrete applications that will ultimately enhance EU food system performances and their overall sustainability. The setup of real-world labs in the field of 6 food systems relevant to the EU market – tomatoes, spinach, poultry, pigs, Atlantic salmon and seabream aquacultures – will, first, enable CIRCLES to increase knowledge on the importance of food system microbiomes as determinants of productivity, quality, safety and sustainability. This discovery phase will nurture the design and implementation of food system-specific microbiomes-tailored circular actions. Relying on an integrative usage of different Smart Microbiome (SM)-modulators, circular actions aim to optimize the microbiomes of food systems, from farm to fork, for an overall improvement of food system performances. The effectiveness of actions will then be tested in the labs in the field. This real-world validation phase will allow CIRCLES to translate the project results into concrete products, applications, procedures and tools, ready to be exploited and communicated to penetrate the EU market. In particular, CIRCLES will conceptualize and create SM-food systems for the 6 CIRCLES food chains, defined as food systems with optimized microbiome configurations. CIRCLES will also provide innovative, newly defined SM-food products, as foods derived from the SM-food systems and certified by Microbiome Transparent (MT)-labels. Finally, a vast panel of food system-specific SM-modulators will be provided as new agro-biotech applications to be integrated into circular actions to reach the status of SM-food system. In conclusion, the conceptualization, creation, and dissemination of SM-food systems, as well as all connected procedures, products, and tools, will allow CIRCLES to endow the EU food systems with new, cost-effective commercial applications for improved productivity, quality, safety and sustainability.

Innnovation Radar's analysis of this innovation is based on data collected on 20/01/2025.
The unique id of this innovation in the European Commission's IT systems is: 132205