The FOODI consortium is a strong and mature partnership of Asian and EU academic institutions, most of whom are listed in the prestigious World University Rankings, by Times Higher Education.

It consists of 16 organizations from 3 EU countries and 4 Asian countries. The 10 HEI from partner countries (PCs) comes from 3 different countries in Asia (Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand) in which food-industry plays a key role in economic and social development thus covering a large part of the region of Asia. All EU and PC HEI are specialized in Food science and technology.

FOODI will impact academic professionals and administrative staff working in the PC HEIs and other HEIs by establishing FOODI centers. It is anticipated to act as foci for research and innovation in the area thus ensuring that Food Processing & Innovation will remain high in the regional priorities agenda academically but also in terms of policy, for a long time after the project has been completed.  Academic professionals and administrative staff from partners’ HEIs will continue to benefit from them, but research gains will spill over to the inter-regional and global academic community thus benefiting other stakeholders as well such as researchers, experts, associations or networks of HEIs, research institutes and industry actors.

FOODI will have a significant long-term impact on students at a local, regional, national levels after the project since the programme will continue being delivered and increase its students’ intakes in the years after the project.  The same goes for the accompanying internship programme that students will be expected to complete thus gaining valuable on the job working experience.  The long-term impact of FOODI on students could be exponential if the MSc programme in its entirety or at least some of its components (MSc, VET) are adopted by other HEIs nationally or in other countries in the region that face a similar gap in the subject area such as Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Finally, the FOODI will impact the industry through the continuation, expansion and growth of the internship programme and the VET courses being delivered.  FOODI initial success will mean that more companies will join the programme after the project by offering internship placements or training their personnel.