The Edmund Mach Foundation (FEM) is a national and international reference for research, training and technology transfer. Expertise and technologies qualify it as a cutting-edge center in the fields of agriculture, food and the environment.

Through multidisciplinary approaches, FEM promotes sustainable food production, aiming at low-impact agricultural practices and conserving genetic biodiversity. Studies and research aim to ensure the nutritional quality of food, while also protecting natural biodiversity, and enabling biotechnological solutions to mitigate and measure the impact of climate change on local and regional production systems.

Its ever growing international reputation is recognised in various fields: from plant genomics to food chemistry, from nutrition to microbiology, from plant biotechnology to crop protection to computational biology, ecology and environmental sciences.

Active in establishing new research networks, FEM participates in several national and European research clusters and infrastructures in the fields of food chemistry, traceability and natural resource management.

Following the latest ANVUR  research quality assessment, 88% of FEM research products in the Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences area, 94% in the chemical sciences area, and 99% in the biological sciences area have been judged as "Excellent".

On the educational front, San Michele's institution also ranks high, promoting a comprehensive, multi-level training chain from technical and vocational education to a post-diploma course to a doctoral program in collaboration with some 50 institutions and universities.

"Eduscopio" judged the training levels of graduates at FEM's Agricultural Technical Institute to be excellent, and it was the best in the province of Trento based on the results in the university pathway following graduation.