The necessity to guarantee food security to an always growing global population, that by 2050 is estimated to be greater than 9 Billion people, has driven with increasing interest to insect use as a protein source for humans1 and animal feed2.

The Edible Insects project wants to assert that consumption and breeding of edible insects represents one of the necessary ways to secure an increase in global food production in a sustainable way.

The complexity and ever-growing quantity of scientific informations offers us a great indication of the importance of this theme in recent fields of study.

Another relevant aspect that can be deduced is that there is a scarce level of in-depth analysis on the subject by the Italian political class. The importance
of this theme has been underestimated by putting it in second place, with
the evident risk of losing the opportunity to promote specific scientific R&D - despite important national projects are already in place – and moreover, losing the opportunity of being leaders at an international level of a project – slow but unstoppable – already in place as part of a shared sustainability program.

Thematic areas have been identified and a trial was launched in which groups of experts from different public entities (universities and R&D centres across Italy) and private organisations committed to analyse current research and system state of the art, flaws and opportunities with the aim to propose effective research guides lines.