REFSA (Machine Learning-based system for the automation of systematic literature reviews in food safety domain) is a project to develop SLR (Systematic Literature Review) systems for searching literature on food safety that is relevant to search inquiries initiating the search process. Those search systems will run on open-source applications and IBM Watson system modules. They will use ontologies built in the food safety domain.

The project leader is Prof. Radosław Pytlak, Ph.D., D.Sc., Eng. of the Warsaw University of Technology Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science.

The project will be carried out in collaboration with the following partners: the Norwegian Institute of Public Health – Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment; Oslo Metropolitan University; Polish National Institute of Public Health – National Institute of Hygiene; and Tecna Sp. z o.o., an IBM business partner.

Institutions such as the Polish National Institute of Hygiene or the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment are in charge of issuing opinions for marketing authorization of new food products (or in matters of food production). Forming an opinion requires a review of a great number of scientific papers (in the thousands) addressing the issue concerned. The existing applications which support SLR are of little use for automation of the food safety literature search process as they fail to embrace the interdisciplinary nature of this scientific domain. The systems proposed in the project will draw on the multidisciplinary knowledge contained in the food safety ontology developed under the project.

Supporting the development of junior scientists, international exchange, as well as collaboration between university and industrial partners are all other important aspects of the project.

The project will last two years.

The POLNOR 2019 Call is part of the “Applied research” Programme implemented under the Norwegian Grants and the European Economic Area (EEA) Grants. The goal of the program is to improve the quality of research applied in Poland by strengthening science and research cooperation between Poland and Norway, developed on the basis of an equal partnership between Polish and Norwegian research organizations and enterprises.

The operator of the “Applied research” Programme is the National Centre for Research and Development.

The POLNOR 2019 Call asked for projects across six focus areas: Welfare, health and care; Digital and industry; Energy; Transport and climate; Food and natural resources; Social and economic development; and Unmanned vehicles.

38 projects were submitted for funding.

The full results of the POLNOR 2019 Call are available on the NCBR website.