INRiM actively participated in Mission 4 – Education and Research, Component 2 – From Research to Business, Investment 3.1, aimed at promoting technological innovation, strengthening skills, and supporting the transition towards a circular economy, including through dedicated actions for the creation and enhancement of Research Infrastructures.

The project METROFOOD-IT – Strengthening of the Italian Research Infrastructure for Metrology and Open Access Data in Support of Agrifood contributed to consolidating national scientific excellence in the field of food safety through the development of platforms and services dedicated to the quality, authenticity, and traceability of raw materials and food products, as well as to the digital transformation of the agrifood sector.

The project is part of the European Research Infrastructure METROFOOD-EU, coordinated by ENEA and included in the ESFRI Roadmap (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) under the Health and Food domain. Coordinated by ENEA and funded under Next Generation Europe, METROFOOD-IT involved INRiM together with the University of Naples Federico II, the University of Parma, the University of Siena, Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Bari, and the University of Molise.

METROFOOD-IT acted as an interface between research, innovation, industrial stakeholders, and citizens, defining and testing processes and scenarios for the development of sustainable and innovative agrifood systems. The adoption of a multi-actor approach and the implementation of Living Labs fostered the direct and informed involvement of stakeholders in the project’s objectives, activities, results, and impacts.

Within the framework of the project activities, INRiM developed an open-access digital platform to support the analysis of microplastics in food, environmental, and biological matrices. The service integrates advanced image-processing tools based on computer vision techniques and artificial intelligence models trained on experimental datasets, enabling the automated segmentation and dimensional and morphological characterization of particles, including irregular particles and particles occurring in aggregates.

The platform also includes a library of spectra of the main plastic polymers, acquired through Raman spectroscopy, infrared (IR) spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), supporting the identification, comparison, and validation of analytical results. The tool contributes to improving the comparability of measurements across laboratories and strengthening the monitoring capabilities for microplastic contamination throughout the food supply chain.