The STAPLES project, funded under the PRIMA programme and supported by Horizon Europe, aims to increase the resilience of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions food systems, which are particularly exposed to shocks in international food markets, and especially cereals, due to their low internal food production capacity and their high reliance on imports.

STAPLES brings together a consortium of nine partners from Italy, Spain, Egypt, and Morocco including universities, think tanks and research organisations, cooperatives and a multi country business network gathering several Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the Mediterranean region.

Over a timespan of three years, STAPLES aims at co-creating and disseminating new knowledge about the external stressors and shocks that are linked with global cereal value chains, along with potential solutions that local supply chain actors and policymakers can adopt to mitigate and manage effectively those destabilizing factors. Leveraging digital tools, new insights and data from available platforms will be integrated into a dashboard and a decision support system that will guide stakeholders in adopting evidence-based recommendations and actionable solutions identified by the project.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Federico Caniato from the Department of Management Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. The research group of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano will collaborate on the integration of existing digital tools, new insights and data from available platforms into a dashboard and decision support system that will serve to inform private and public actors.

The project also sees the involvement of Fondazione Politecnico Milano who will support in project management and communication and dissemination activities.