Creating urban co-creation spaces for driving sustainable food system transformation

Expected Outcome:

The successful proposal will contribute to the European Green Deal priorities and the farm to fork and the EU biodiversity strategies, as well as of the EU’s climate ambition for 2030 and 2050. It will also contribute to the Food 2030 priorities: nutrition for sustainable healthy diets, circularity and resource efficiency, innovation and empowering communities.^[1] The successful proposal will support the development of policies, business models and market conditions contributing to the sustainable and inclusive development of urban areas and to the empowerment and resilience of their communities, who can access, afford and choose sustainable food.

Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• enhanced skills and problem-based learning to change food cultures, behaviours and food environments;
• improved local governance frameworks for social inclusion and social economy in urban areas;
• improved understanding of the local policy ‘mix’/package of measures as well as the effective communication and marketing strategies that are needed to support EU consumer behavioural change towards sustainable diets.

Scope:

Achieving sustainable food systems requires managing numerous interconnected activities and actors with an impact on nutrition, environmental and economic outcomes of great relevance to the EU, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Understanding food systems interconnections and interdependencies is crucial in decision making processes to steer a food system change. Yet, for governments to promote more sustainable food systems, they will need to improve their capacity to deal with the complexity of interdependencies with adequate governance mechanisms and principles to support a more systemic approach. Strengthening food systems governance in the urban context is an important area and opportunity for research, innovation and implementation to accelerate sustainability impact in the local context. It has the potential to enhance more coordination and coherent actions, leading to the development of more effective urban policies that ensure food security and nutrition for all without compromising economic, environmental, and social foundations.

Proposals are expected to address at least three of the following:

• create innovative hands-on living labs and co-creation spaces that actively engage all parts of society to enhance skills and capacity building toward healthy, affordable and environment- and climate-friendly diets; and apply randomized controlled trials, for different age groups (especially young people and the elderly), socio-economic groups and their different needs;
• promote and establish sustainable / regenerative community gardens and indoor and open field small-scale urban agriculture for skills building and network creation and share best practices from other areas/cities not covered by the proposals;
• enhance participation of vulnerable groups, such as young people (including those not in education or employment), elderly people, migrants, homelessness people, ethnic minorities, pregnant women, and persons with disabilities, in living labs and community gardens to strengthen inclusion as well as intercultural and intergenerational cohesion;
• enhance attractiveness of safe, healthy, environment-friendly food, for instance by making use of social media and partnering up with different actors (e.g., chefs, nutritionists and dieticians, food scientists and technologists, food industry, start-ups R&D, social/solidarity economy actors, etc.);
• involve local and regional governance mechanisms to enable structural change, for instance by developing and implementing effective participatory and inclusive processes which enable and stimulate an extensive dialogue on food system transformation and involve diverse stakeholders (e.g., citizens, farmers, consumers, civil society organizations, research institutions, businesses, and public authorities at the local or regional levels);
• connect different living labs and build networks, also from previous EU funded projects, for joint learning and best practice exchange;
• establish data monitoring approaches (e.g. through using machine learning approach, AI, etc.) and a test-control approach for impact assessment and evidence-based policy making.

Proposals should include a dedicated task in the workplan and appropriate resources to collaborate with the projects funded under this topic and under topic HORIZON-CL6-2022-GOVERNANCE-01-01 (Mobilisation of society to transform food systems for co-benefit, Cleverfood).

Collaboration and complementarity with the European Partnerships on “Sustainable Food Systems”, “Agroecology”, the EU Missions “A Soil Deal for Europe” and “Climate-Neutral Smart Cities”, and the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Facility is encouraged.

Cooperation with the JRC may be envisaged, in particular for actions related to monitoring and improving the governance of food systems.

Proposals should integrate the gender dimension where applicable. Consideration of other social categories besides gender (disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnic and/or cultural origin, sexual orientation, etc.), and their intersections, should be also ensured. The use of multi-actor approach is encouraged.

This topic should involve the effective contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines.

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, cooperation with legal entities established in widening countries is strongly encouraged. International cooperation is also encouraged.

[1] European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Bizzo, G., Fabbri, K., Gajdzinska, M. et al., Food 2030 – Pathways for action 2.0 – R&I policy as a driver for sustainable, healthy, climate resilient and inclusive food systems, Publications Office of the European Union, 2023, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/365011