Do you know what a sustainable food system is?
Learn its characteristics and simple ways to eat sustainable. 🌱
Would you try it?
Valencia Hosts the First ESM Training Event
The first Training Event of the project took place in Valencia from 9 to 13 February 2026 at IATA-CSIC. It was a special milestone for the network, as it was the first time the doctoral candidates met in person and the whole consortium gathered together.
During the first three days, Doctoral Candidates attended inspiring lectures covering colloidal science, statistics, polymer science, nutrition, machine learning, open science, ethics, and sensory science. These sessions built a common scientific ground while fostering lively interdisciplinary discussions between candidates and lecturers.
The fourth day was dedicated to a poster session, where doctoral candidates presented and discussed their individual research projects with the consortium. They also met with their Scientific Advisory Committees to develop a Personal Career Development Plan tailored to their ambitions and research paths.
Before the closing dinner, the group enjoyed a city tour of Valencia, creating a relaxed setting that encouraged interactions, strengthened connections, and helped build new relationships across the network.
The event concluded with a convivial dinner featuring Spanish cuisine, providing the perfect ending to a productive and memorable week and reinforcing the sense of community within the project.
We are already looking forward to the next Training Event.
Edible Soft Matter: How soft matter science can be applied to edible materials and guide food design and production.
Edible soft matter applies the physics of soft materials to understand, design, and improve the foods we eat. Rather than seeing food only as recipes of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, this approach studies how these components interact at microscopic scales to create structure, texture, stability, taste, and nutritional performance.
The article shows how concepts from colloid and soft matter science help explain everyday foods — from milk and yoghurt to bread and meat alternatives — and guide the design of new, healthier, and more sustainable products. For example, milk is presented as a naturally optimized colloidal system that controls nutrient release during digestion, offering inspiration for designing plant-based alternatives with similar functionality.
Advanced techniques such as confocal microscopy, rheology, tomography, and microfluidics allow researchers to observe how food structures form, evolve, and break down during processing and digestion. This knowledge is essential to address current challenges: the protein transition from animal to plant sources, reducing ultra-processed ingredients, improving texture and sensory perception, and designing foods that are both nutritious and environmentally sustainable.
Edible soft matter provides a scientific framework to rethink food design — from kitchen to industry — by linking structure, function, perception, and health.
Have a look at our publication here!
Edible Soft Matter. Europhysics News, 29 July 2025. Laurence Ramos (CNRS), Deniz Gunes (KUL), Wilson Poon (UEDIN) and Peter Fischer (ETHZ)
What can you say about your PhD project in just a few words? And now in your own language!
In this second series, ESM doctoral candidates share their projects in their mother tongues.
Watch, listen, and discover the interdisciplinarity of our PhD projects and the international nature of our network.
What can you say about your PhD project in just a few words?
We asked the ESM doctoral candidates to do exactly that.
Their answers capture the essence of their work.
Watch, listen, and start discovering what we really do.