COMFOCUS Open Call #1

Submit your proposal starting from May 11th, 2022 Open

COMFOCUS Open Call #1 is offering virtual access to the Easy Questionnaire Tool (EQT) a key European research infrastructure in the multidisciplinary field of food consumer science linked to healthy eating based on an original and innovative research proposal related to exploring the motivational factors in healthy eating, including interest in food products and services that aim to support healthy eating.

The COMFOCUS Open Call #1 is offering virtual access to the EQT. This online tooling offers users the opportunity to develop their own (pan-European) questionnaire on self-related measures related to healthy eating. Each user will have access to the COMFOCUS library that contains harmonized measures related to:
- psycho-social consumer characteristics
- product/food experiences and expectations
- consumer behaviour as an outcome
- consumers as agents in the food system
- socio-demographics
All these measures are selected and agreed on by a scientific community that consists of experts in the food consumer science domain. As a user, you will register and create your own survey

The COMFOCUS Open Call 1 invites proposals for studies in the field of food consumer science with a connection to healthy eating. These studies can relate to consumer behaviour in relation to healthy food choices, other food-related activities, motivation factors behind food choices, perceptions of healthy eating in general, or the perceptions of single food products. The main purpose and target of the studies may vary, but we expect the proposed studies to contain an aspect that relates to healthy eating.

Food consumer science has the ambition to find out what drives consumers’ food choices and other food-related behaviours. The research in this field is fragmented due to a variety of methodological approaches and cultural differences producing a large body of data, but at the same time making it difficult to make comparisons between studies.

Data requirements

To be able to combine and utilise the datasets in the future, we have selected a number of connecting concepts that are measured with self-reported scales and questions in survey studies. In COMFOCUS, the measurement of these concepts has been harmonised so that the data from different studies becomes comparable. In order to take part in the Open Call, you need to select at least one connector concept from category A and one from category B (Table 1) as part of your study and use the harmonised measures developed by our team when operationalising the concepts. In addition, using harmonised measures for socio-demographic variables is required. Using other concepts that have harmonised measures in COMFOCUS library is highly recommended. This does not exclude using other operationalisations in parallel to those in the COMFOCUS library. The use of these measures will enable diverse researchers participating in this call to connect and link their data sets, should they wish to do so and help the development of the COMFOCUS RI platform.

Table 1: Connectors for data

No#	Concepts	Harmonised measure	Scope
A1	Healthy eating – diet	Frequency scale with 13 product categories	Healthy diet/eating
A2	Intentions	Healthy eating intentions 4 items	Healthy eating
A3	Self-evaluated healthiness of diet	1 item	Healthy eating
B1a	Subjective nutrition knowledge	5 items	Subjective nutrition knowledge
B1b	Objective nutrition knowledge	20 items	Objective nutrition knowledge
B2	General Interest towards healthy eating	General Health Interest (GHI) 8 items	Healthy eating
B3a	Self-identity – healthy eater	Healthy eater identity 3 items	Health-oriented food consumer
B3b	Self-identity – sustainable consumer (only when with B3a)	Pro-environmental self-identity 3 items	Sustainable food consumer
B4*	Willingness to pay	1 item	Food products/product categories
B5*	Food evoked emotions	EsSense25 25 items	Food products/product categories
B6*	Expectations about food	Expectation profile 11 items	Food products/product categories
B6#	Expected healthiness/Health image	1 item	Food products/product categories
B7a	Trust in food systems actors	4 items	Food and nutrition security
B7b	Trust in products	15 items	Food and nutrition security
C	Socio-demographics	Gender, age, socio-econ. status; education	Consumer characteristics

Data management

The EQT software is hosted by Wageningen Research. This tool can store both raw research data and meta data.

As hosts of this key software, Wageningen Research should be responsible for executing any legal agreements in respect of data deposition on behalf of the Consortium, in the first instance.

A simple non-negotiable data deposition agreement template is available. It will:

Provide a license to access and use EQT.
Request that only copies of data be deposited – researchers shall otherwise be free to use the data they collect as they see fit.
Compel researchers to use ‘public interest’ as their legal basis for collection of personal data, as opposed to consent (because ‘research’ is automatically considered a compatible purpose).
Require all data be collected in accordance with applicable laws and include a warranty in this respect – Belgian (EU) law will apply to the interpretation of the agreement.
Require that data must be comprehensively anonymised at source.

Depositor grants to Consortium a non-exclusive, sublicensable licence to use the data for further research purposes, including but not limited to train our data visualisation models and representational learning tools for the future research infrastructure. Successful applicants need to:

deposit anonymised copy of the data collected using EQT to COMFOCUS
grant a licence to the COMFOCUS consortium to use the data for further research purposes that include training our data visualisation models and representational learning tools for the future RI.
grant an automatic, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable licence to access and use the pooled dataset in the platform for further academic research purposes to anyone who deposits data within the platform.
ensure acknowledgement of Consortium funding in any dissemination activities such as journal publications, conference presentations, etc.

Calls for proposals are not restricted to institutions in EU Member States, but also non-EU Member States. Countries outside Europe are allowed to apply (up to 20% of all the submissions).

Data Access

The intention is for the platform to eventually evolve to allow for mere access to the platform data, for research which does not require the use EQT. This would require a separate (non-negotiable) template, which, contrary to the above:

Would require a copy of any metadata data generated through analysis of COMFOCUS data be deposited back in the platform.
Does not include an automatic licence to the pooled dataset at large.
Proposals for Data Access will only be accepted for a limited dataset – as opposed to the platform dataset at large, based on the proposal submitted – but otherwise will be subject to the same decision-making procedure outlined above.

The COMFOCUS Open Calls #1 for Virtual Access (VA) is open to researchers working in EU Member States and Associated Countries as well as in Third Countries.

Who can apply:

✓ Each applicant should be aged 18 years or older.

✓ Applicants from both inside and outside Europe are allowed to apply to the Open Calls. The Open Calls allow for a 20% participation from countries outside Europe. Therefore, interesting parties from outside Europe (e.g., Canada) are also allowed to apply.

✓ In contrast to Open Calls that offer Transnational Access, where only researchers from countries other than the country that is offering the Transnational Access are allowed to apply, this Open Call is offering only Virtual Access. This means that for Open Call 1 also organisations/institutes located in the Netherlands (that aren’t affiliated with Wageningen Research) are allowed to apply to Open Call 1 (VA is offered by Wageningen Research).

✓ An applicant should be an early career researcher (based in academic or private sector), with a minimum requirement that the data collection should be part of a Master’s Thesis (Bachelor’s Thesis not allowed).

✓ An applicant should have a proficient level of use of English (at least B2).

✓ Number of proposals per applicant: each individual may participate in more than one application. In the event of sufficient proven suitability of the proposals, a proportional distribution will be made among the applicants.

*Be aware that all information provided will be verified during the evaluation process. If any false information is detected, the proposal will be immediately excluded.

Making use of the Easy Questionnaire Tool (an easy way for researchers to make questionnaires with harmonized measures), which includes the following:
- the EQT will help researchers with the design and development of their quantitative survey from start to the moment of data collection,
- free access to the harmonised measures and their background documents,
- a quick and easy tool to design questionnaire by selecting the harmonised measures that researchers want to include in their study.
Questionnaire and dataset will align with the FAIR principles; which will facilitate the uploading of data to data repositories, when the study is published
Become a “COMFOCUS fellow” and get access to the following benefits:
- Connect to other COMFOCUS fellows that used the COMFOCUS toolings and search for potential collaborations, linkages of data sharing and publish together.
- Access to different datasets,
- Create larger datasets using the connecting variables,
- Access to the COMFOCUS Knowledge Platform: discussion forum, library (with harmonised measures and protocols), as well as tools and services developed in the coming years as well as access to consortium expertise and mentoring
- Attending/participating in webinars and events to network with other COMFOCUS fellows and learn how datasets can be combined to answer research questions.
The access to future funding opportunities for Open Call #2.

For the COMFOCUS Open Call #1 no funding scheme is applicable

A one-stage application process will be adopted within this Open Call.

Submit your proposal from May 11th to October 31st, 2022

Before submitting a project proposal, applicants must follow the specifications
Fill out the forms
Upload the documents requested
Accept the terms and conditions
Submit the proposal

*Users’ data will be kept private and will be accessible only by those involved in the selection procedure of the COMFOCUS open call #1. Personal information is required for statistical records of our programme and reporting to the European Commission. Its use follows EU laws on data protection.

The evaluation process involves 3 stages, as outlined below:

Stage 1 – Eligibility evaluation

Stage 2 – Individual evaluation: All eligible proposals will be evaluated by two COMFOCUS evaluators

Stage 3 – Final Evaluation: A COMFOCUS Independent Selection Panel will agree on an overall Final Evaluation Report

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.