Singapore strengthens R&D for future foods

A*STAR has been building capabilities in Singapore’s research ecosystem to address industry needs

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have launched grant calls for R&D in ‘Sustainable Urban Food Production’ and ‘Future Foods: Alternative Proteins’, respectively. These grant calls will provide funding support for innovative research projects that address:

i. Challenges facing the tropical aquaculture and urban agriculture industries, and
ii. Global and local limitations for producing dietary protein

A*STAR has been building capabilities in Singapore’s research ecosystem to address industry needs. The global protein industry faces mounting constraints on land use and environmental sustainability, and seeks alternative methods to produce protein-rich foods.

Research proposals must address topics related to the creation of protein-rich foods and ingredients using sources including but not limited to plants, vegetables, microbes, animal cell culture, insects, and commercial side streams. Applicants are encouraged to consider food safety, nutrition, palatability, scalability, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and other real-world implications.

This grant call will be in the form of a Seed Grant where researchers are to demonstrate novelty in their R&D approach and ground breaking science to address some of the fundamental challenges in Alternative Proteins.

With the seed funding, A*STAR hopes to enable researchers to demonstrate evidence-based proof-of-concept technologies and solutions that will have regional and global commercial values in the near term while supporting the “30-by-30” national goal.