Today’s global challenges in the Health & Food domain are vast and complex. They include, among others: the rising burden of common complex diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, antimicrobial resistance, nutrition related diseases; emerging zoonosis of worldwide importance; pandemics; livestock epidemics; the affordability of the health care systems;EC Expert Group on Public Health
https://health.ec.europa.eu/non-communicable-diseases/expert-group-public-health_en

the resilience and sustainability (economic, environmental, societal and cultural) of the entire agro-food value chain; food and nutrition security and safety, especially in light of shocks (environmental, economic, geopolitical) and the circular bioeconomy. Europe has high ambitions for meeting these challenges. At the core of its strategy, ESFRI landmark Research Infrastructures (RIs) play a major role.

Currently about two thirds of all deaths in the European region are due to non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health conditions, nutrition related diseases.Cause of death statistics – Eurostat
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Causes_of_death_statistics#Major_causes_of_death_in_the_EU_in_2020

This prevalence is set to increase with an ageing population. These epidemics are global, affecting low-, middle- and high-income countries, and have three consequences, each exacerbated by health inequalities: avoidable human suffering; undesirable societal costs; and crises in primary prevention, primary care and secondary care. 

There are strong connections between environmental, food, lifestyle and health issues: food production and processing depend on the environment and also affect it.See, e.g., Walter L. F. et al. (2022), “An overview of the interactions between food production and climate change”, Science of The Total Environment, Vol. 838, Part 3, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156438

In fact, nutritional habits and food quality strongly affect health; food safety and the food composition depends on the healthy and unpolluted environment. The agro-food sector is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions but can also contribute to GHG emission mitigation.Smith P. et al. (2007), “Agriculture”, in Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, US. 

The COVID crisis has highlighted the links between food, biodiversity, health and climate and the need for the ‘One Health’ approach.

Beyond non-communicable diseases, there has been global progress in reducing disease burden due to a number of communicable diseases, including diarrheal diseases, lower respiratory infections, tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid, paratyphoid, and vaccine-preventable infections such as hepatitis B, measles, tetanus, COVID-19 and Hemophilus influenzae type b. Adding to these successes, the last decade has seen profound declines in the burden from HIV/AIDS. A number of emerging and growing health threats also deserve special attention in policy planning, including infectious diseases such as outbreaks of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, pandemic influenza, Ebola virus disease, Zika virus, and dengue fever, which represent acute threats to life and highlight health-system deficiencies where they occur, substance abuse disorders, particularly of opioids and cocaine, in Eastern Europe.

To address the emerging Health & Food issues, European countries have issued national health, nutrition and food guidelines and regulations. The European Commission (EC) has launched the Healthier together – EU Non-Communicable Diseases Initiative Healthier together – EU Non-Communicable Diseases Initiative 
https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-07/ncd_initiative_factsheet.pdf

to support EU countries in identifying and implementing effective policies and actions to reduce the burden of major non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and improve citizens’ health and well-being. EU countries need support to prepare and respond together to health crises, make sure that medical supplies are available, affordable and innovative, and countries work together to improve prevention, treatment and aftercare for diseases. Responding to these necessities, the EC is building the European Health Union,European Health Union 
https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/european-health-union_en 

with the European Health Data Space (EHDS)European Health Data Space (EHDS)
https://health.ec.europa.eu/publications/proposal-regulation-european-health-data-space_en

 as a central building block and key actions on pandemic preparedness, cancer, mental health and pharmaceutical legislation. The United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing
https://www.who.int/initiatives/decade-of-healthyageing

(2021–2030), in turn, stands out as a global collaboration aligned with the last ten years of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the aim to improve the lives of older people, their families, and the communities in which they live. Another EC initiative is the European Green Deal,European Green Deal
https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en 

which calls for no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, a goal which will require efforts and impact all sectors. As for the agro-food sector, the Farm to Fork Strategy sets out goals for agro-food systems that are fair, healthy and environmentally friendly and aims to accelerate our transition to a more sustainable agro-food value chain.

RIs are more important than ever as they are key to support world-class research, providing access to state-of-the-art resources, services, data, and training.

In the ESFRI Health & Food (H&F) domain, a number of internationally recognised excellent RIs exist. As an umbrella to Life Sciences, the ESFRI Landmark ELIXIR enables researchers to access and analyse Life Science data and aims at improving the value and impact of Life Science research on public health, the environment and the economy. In the Health domain, the spectrum of biomedical research spans from clinical research (ESFRI Landmarks ECRIN ERIC, BBMRI-ERIC, EATRIS ERIC, Euro-BioImaging ERIC), to drug design and development (ESFRI Landmarks Instruct-ERIC, EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC), including creating models for disease (ESFRI Landmark INFRAFRONTIER). In the food area, infrastructures cover a large part of the value chain, from ecosystem analysis and experimentation (ESFRI Landmark AnaEE-ERIC), to plant/crop phenotyping (ESFRI Project EMPHASIS) and food and nutrition metrology (ESFRI Project METROFOOD-RI) to industrial biotechnological innovation (ESFRI Project IBISBA). Other RIs cover both the Health and the Food areas. For instance, the ESFRI Landmark MIRRI-ERIC-ERIC focuses on the preservation, systematic investigation, provision and valorisation of microbial resources and biodiversity, the ESFRI Landmark EMBRC-ERIC specialises in marine biological resources, while the ESFRI Project EIRENE RI supports research on human exposome.

Refer to Figure 1 for an overview of ESFRI RIs in the H&F domain. Figure 2 provides a focus on the Health domain, while Figure 3 centres on the Food domain.

These RIs complement infrastructures included in other ESFRI domains. For example, ESFRI Project eLTER RI focuses on ecosystems observation, and ESFRI Landmark LifeWatch ERIC provides e-Science research facilities on biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services in order to support society in addressing key planetary challenges. ESFRI Landmark ICOS ERIC measures carbon, ESFRI Landmark ACTRIS ERIC looks at aerosols, clouds and trace gases in the air, and ESFRI Landmark SHARE ERIC studies the effects of health, social, economic and environmental policies over the life course of European citizens. Or consider ESFRI Landmark ESRF-EBS, a centre of excellence for fundamental and innovation-driven research in condensed and living matter science.