Call for European cosmetics R&D intended projects

[Article that appeared in the Expression Cosmétique magazine No.74 – March/April 2022]
The Centre-Val de Loire region has extended its support for public research players in its territory in the framework of the Cosmétosciences ARD to 2024. With more than €9M already invested to fund more than 30 research projects since 2015, the territory is aiming to become the national benchmark in the field of cosmetics and wishes to develop its European partnerships.

Cosmétosciences supports the work of university and CNRS laboratories in the Centre-Val de Loire region on topics such as the cultivation and use of plants in cosmetics, the development of techniques for extraction and for analysis of the product and its interaction with the skin. Led by the University of Orléans, it benefits from a close partnership with Cosmetic Valley and is located on the historical territory of the cluster. For this new 2021-2024 period, Cosmétosciences aims to reinforce its collaborations on a European scale on the subject of applied research in the cosmetics sector. This regional programme is launching a Call for Intended Projects (AIP) with the European networks of the CNRS, Cosmetic Valley and its member universities.
The goal of this AIP is to identify projects, backed by the industry or European public research, that require research and will involve a number of disciplines (chemistry, extraction, biology, physics, biotechnology, mathematics…) within the Cosmétosciences consortium.

The submitted projects will be analysed and European players will be contacted in order to set up research partnerships.
The priority topics are:

  • Naturalness and eco-friendly processes
  • Characterisation of biological activity; product safety
  • Formulation; sensoriality
  • Other cosmetic innovation topics

This Call for European Intended Projects is in progress.

Example of collaborations between a Cosmétosciences laboratory and the University of Budapest (Hungary)

One of the projects supported by the Cosmétosciences programme is the MISTIC project, the aim of which is to develop new formulations allowing the stimulated release of cosmetic bioactive compounds. It is backed by the Nanomedicines and Nanoprobes (NMNS) laboratory of the University of Tours (France), whose research focuses on the analysis of skin composition from a scientific point of view, and on testing the penetration of active ingredients into the epidermis. In particular, they use RAMAN confocal spectroscopy.

Dr Franciska Vidáné Erdö has joined the NMNS team to work on this project as an international researcher invited in the context of the Smart Loire Valley programme supported by Le Studium Loire Valley. She conducts her research at the Pázmány Péter Catholic university in Budapest, Hungary where she is an associate professor and in charge of a laboratory working on physiological barriers.
Both universities would like too take things further. They are planning to organise conferences and joint publications on their shared work, and to work on setting up collaborative European projects.