The second COMFOCUS roundtable with food consumer science experts on how to overcome the challenges in harmonising approaches has taken place in Tatras, Slovakia on May 16th, 2024.
Discussion started with considering what is science community and whether one belongs to one, and should there be a community to food consumer science.
There was a bit unclarity about what is a science community. For some, the science community related to the community within one’s organisation and research group, for others it was a wider science community in relation to scientific meetings, getting together with others who do work on similar topics and can be potential collaborators in the future.
Being part of an international community can be challenging if there are no funds to go and present work in scientific meetings.
In some fields, there are clear science communities whereas in others they do not exist. There is also a possibility to have virtual communities and virtual conferences as a form of activity.
There was a note that in order to be a community, there needs to be trust among members and clear idea of why it is beneficial to belong to a community.
Communities are built around good communication and transparency in actions and activities. Best way to be well-connected would be meeting face-to-face to create engagement.
In food consumer science, the community could be wider and not only include scientists, but also other stakeholders such as those who use the research (authorities, private sector) and consumers as well.
Although face-to-face interaction is good for community building, virtual communication is a must nowadays. The push for results is a constraint as there is a pressure to have results available as soon as possible, which requires being more open to online communication as well.
COMFOCUS approach is complex, but it needs to be communicated simply. Researchers need motivation to donate data – e.g. this could be getting prestige and developing awareness about one’s research activities. Comfocus could have a platform with required quality criteria and where one can have one’s own publications available to others.
There is a tendency towards data sharing becoming an essential part of the research process that needs to be also demonstrated as part of scientists’ qualifications. COMFOCUS could create mechanisms (e.g. shared database) to support this tendency.
Data sharing can be deterred also due to researchers worrying about their own data quality.
Just sharing different data sets may not end up being very useful if they are just random set of data from studies with different aims and measures.
There are also several legal issues related to data sharing and data ownership that need attention.
COMFOCUS needs to work on its trustworthiness and create a strong brand – one option would be to contact top ten scientists in the community and get them onboard. These could be the ten most cited and highly appreciated by the colleagues.
In the COMFOCUS project there will be a data base with 60+ data sets in the platform. How the Comfocus fellows want to use the data is an open question.
A Comfocus platform could be beneficial in matchmaking research interests between colleagues: if donating data allows to have access to description of other data sets, it gives a possibility to find other researcher that may have similar data sets or work in similar topics and thereby find possible co-operation partners for the future as well.
