ECOLE NATIONALE VETERINAIRE, AGROALIMENTAIRE ET DE L'ALIMENTATION NANTES ATLANTIQUE

Their core work

ONIRIS is a French veterinary and food science school in Nantes that combines veterinary medicine, food engineering, and nutrition research under one roof. Their core work spans animal health and welfare — including antimicrobial resistance and biosecurity — alongside food safety, chemical hazard assessment, and consumer-facing food quality. They bring a distinctive dual lens: understanding food risks from farm (animal production systems) through to fork (infant food safety, chemical mixtures in food). This makes them a natural bridge between veterinary sciences and agri-food safety disciplines.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

ONIRIS entered H2020 in 2018 with a split focus: animal health and welfare (HealthyLivestock, ROADMAP) alongside consumer food preferences (SWEET) and veterinary regenerative medicine (iPSpine). From 2020 onward, their emphasis shifted decisively toward chemical risk assessment and food safety — projects like SAFFI (infant food hazards), PANORAMIX (chemical mixtures), and PROTECT (climate impacts on food safety) dominate. Their most recent entry, FAIR CHARM (2022), signals a move into advanced analytical instrumentation, suggesting they are investing in next-generation detection and imaging tools.

ONIRIS is consolidating around integrated food safety risk assessment — combining analytical chemistry, toxicology modelling, and real-world hazard identification — making them a strong future partner for farm-to-fork safety projects.

How they like to work

ONIRIS operates predominantly as a third-party expert or specialist contributor — 5 of their 9 projects are third-party roles, with only 1 coordination (HAZARDOmics, a Marie Curie fellowship). They consistently join large Research and Innovation Actions (7 out of 9 projects are RIA), meaning they integrate into big consortia rather than leading small teams. With 145 unique partners across 24 countries, they are well-networked but tend to contribute specialized veterinary or food safety expertise rather than drive project strategy.

ONIRIS has collaborated with 145 distinct partners across 24 countries, giving them a broad European network. Their partnerships span veterinary schools, food research institutes, and chemical safety bodies, with particular strength in Western European agri-food research circles.

What sets them apart

ONIRIS occupies a rare intersection: a single institution that spans veterinary medicine, food engineering, and analytical chemistry. Most veterinary schools lack deep food safety and chemical hazard expertise; most food science institutes lack the animal health dimension. This dual competence makes ONIRIS especially valuable for projects that need to trace risks across the entire food production chain — from livestock management and antimicrobial use through to contaminant detection in processed food products.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PANORAMIX
  Their largest funded project (EUR 418,125), tackling chemical mixture risk assessment — a growing regulatory priority in the EU.
• HAZARDOmics
  Their only coordinated project, a Marie Curie fellowship in advanced mass spectrometry techniques, showcasing their analytical chemistry strength.
• SAFFI
  Addresses infant food safety across EU and China, demonstrating ONIRIS's ability to work on international food regulation challenges beyond Europe.