This year’s event is hybrid, bringing together experts and participants online and onsite in Oxford.

The FoSSNet Conference 2025 offers two interactive online breakout sessions, providing a unique opportunity to contribute to shaping the future of food systems science. This conference is open to both early-career professionals and experienced researchers looking to build a European network.

FOSTER is represented by several project members, including:

• Monika Zurek from the University of Oxford, who will participate in the opening and highlight the theme “Defining Food Systems and Food Systems Science.”
• John Ingram from the University of Oxford, who will give a lecture on the FoSSNet Food System Conceptual Framework and the definition of Food Systems Science.
• Thom Achterbosch from Wageningen University & Research, who will present FoSSNet’s stocktake on Food Systems Science and Education in Europe.

See the agenda of the eventhttps://fossnet.eu/oxford-conference-plenary-sessions/.

Stay tuned for more updates from FOSTER.

The Horizon Europe Project Foster Food System is all about integrating heterogenous perspectives on knowledge and innovation in the European Research Area, meaning that universities and research centers closely collaborate with non-academic initiatives such as citizen initiatives, innovation advisors and advocacy groups. In FOSTER, we call these initiatives “Change Driven Initiatives”, or in short – CDIs!

Recently, project coordinator DIL Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik e. V. had the pleasure to host a workshop led by our partners from Fraunhofer ISI, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Cuhls, Ariane Voglhuber-Slavinsky and Miquel Banchs-Piqué. This workshop was all about the potential design, structure, and key topic(s) for a new CDI in the region of Lower Saxony.  

The meeting aimed at:

• Exploring examples of existing CDIs and their diverse structures;
• Mapping regional networks and initiatives where DIL is active;
• Brainstorming on “future themes” to build a solid foundation for a CDI prototype.  

This was an exciting first step in building a collaborative and impactful future for knowledge and innovation! Stay tuned as we continue these dynamic workshops within the framework of FOSTER!

In FOSTER, we aim to share science-based information about food systems with the public. For that, we established our FOSTER Platform, the place for communication, learning and foresight results. The FOSTER digital Platform was updated with the links from the Horizon Scanning activities – the links were rechecked, and some new links were added.
The FOSTER context scenarios are also available on the platform. Meanwhile, we prepared our repository of other EU projects, where you can get some useful information about food-related projects and get links to these projects.

We would also like to know your questions about food systems and their futures, therefore, waiting for your questions or suggestions!
Click on “ask your question” button to leave your questions. 

At the University of Hohenheim’s Agricultural University Day, our FOSTER project partners Uli Ostarhild from the Food Policy Council Stuttgart and Prof. Verena Seufert from the University of Hohenheim, had the opportunity to discuss the question ‘Working the fields together – how can practice and science research together at eye level?’. The discussion took place in a fishbowl format and included several ‘tandems’, i.e. project partners from both science and practice, showcasing examples of transdisciplinary research projects in an agri-food system context. The FOSTER team provided an example from the civil society perspective, while other examples came from transdisciplinary projects focusing on production and processing.

 But what does transdisciplinary research actually mean? In contrast to disciplinary or interdisciplinary research, in transdisciplinary research, stakeholders from practice are involved in the scientific process on an equal footing from the outset.

As the Food Policy Council Stuttgart, we are starting our triangle project in the next few weeks together with the FOSTER team from Prof. Verena Seufert, and a large industrial company as a third (practice) partner on the topic of sustainable regional public catering.

We are very confident that this research approach within the framework of FOSTER food systems will lead us to direct and effective solutions for more sustainable public catering. Our vision is to make a contribution to a transition towards a more climate-friendly diet with many stakeholders, locally in Stuttgart, along the entire supply chain, from production to the dining table.

More information about the event can be found here: https://oeko.uni-hohenheim.de/landwirtschaftlicher_hochschultag

On October 9^th and 10^th 2024, FOSTER had a two-day event, comprising a Project Meeting and a Joint Workshop of FOSTER consortium and FOSTER science-policy expert panel. The event was held in Brussels, Belgium at the Representation of the State of Lower Saxony to the European Union.

Project Meeting 2024

On October 9^th, project members – including academic partners, Change Driven Initiatives (CDIs) and the Chair of the FOSTER Expert Panel, Janet Dwyer (University of Gloucestershire) – came together to reflect on FOSTER’s progress over the past two years. The main theme was exploring FOSTER’s contributions to transforming the food system and enhancing knowledge and innovation within it.

During the meeting, members shared project status updates, recapped recent Summer School activities, and discussed foresight tools used in those sessions. CDIs shared experiences, successes and challenges from their recent work, following by a dedicated session focused on their stakeholder maps and steps to achieve the desired FOKIS diagrams. The project’s communication and dissemination activities were reviewed, and members previewed the first version of the FOSTER video, soon to be shared with a wider audience.

This meeting was a great opportunity for FOSTER to gather together with the consortium members and the Chair of the FOSTER Expert Panel Janet Dwyer for fruitful discussions and evaluation of the project practices and achievements, and for finding new solutions to approach our ambitious and complex goal of food system transformation.  

Joint Workshop of FOSTER consortium and FOSTER science-policy expert panel

On October 10th, the Joint Workshop allowed CDIs and expert panel members to meet in person for the first time. This exchange facilitated a dialogue aimed at improving governance and policies that foster knowledge and innovation. The project’s ultimate goal is to identify ways to adapt, include, and govern knowledge and innovation systems that help transform Europe’s food system to enhance public health, protect the environment, promote fairness, and support sustainable businesses.

The FOSTER Expert Panel, established to translate research insights into policy recommendations, comprises experts in policy processes. In this first Sci-Pol Expert Panel meeting, participants explored a range of EU-level policy instruments that could impact food initiatives. This direct exchange with food initiatives provided valuable insights for policies supporting the shift toward healthier, greener, and more resilient food systems in Europe.

Throughout various sessions, CDIs presented their missions and visions, sharing insights and exploring opportunities for innovation and transformation with the expert panel. Later, invited policy advisors joined for informal discussions with CDIs, fostering connections between food initiatives and formal research, innovation, and knowledge structures.

This gathering introduced participants to the FOSTER project’s mission and vision, the participating food initiatives, and relevant EU policy instruments, setting the stage for continued collaboration in promoting food system transformation.

Summer Schools of FOSTER are specifically designed for building capability in working within transdisciplinary arenas, across sectors and based on RRI principles including gender aspects, ethics and open science. They are designed to foster exchange and dialogue across on food system concepts and tools for food system change across academic and Change Driven Initiative (CDI) partners.

This year´s Summer School was organised by the University of Oxford and Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research with the participation of other academic partners and CDIs of FOSTER. Over 40 participants had the opportunity to dive into the principles of foresight thinking and try out some tools in practice.

In FOSTER, we aim to have a dialogue with the CDIs on foresight approaches they apply in their work – and this Summer School was specifically focused on practical Foresight experiences and applications for specific CDI issues together with exploring various system thinking tools. In FOSTER we see foresight as a structured debate about complex futures and their implications for food system change, which include interactions with different actors and consideration of different systematic interdependencies. 

The main objectives of the Summer School 2024 were:

• To recap on food systems thinking and foresight approaches;
• To explore examples of food systems foresight methods;
• To apply food system methods for CDIs’ activities;
• To reflect on foresight methods in relation to CDIs´ activities and action plans.

Within the three days of the Summer School, participants could expand their knowledge on system thinking tools and foresight methods, apply some tools in practice and reflect on the tools and methods for their own work.

On the first day, CDIs presented their current action plans for work in the project and received feedback and reflection from the project members on how their action plans can be succeeded in real life and what kind of help it would require making it “a living example” of work progressed from planning to action.

In a so-called “mental time-travelling” session, everyone experienced a mental transfer into daily life situations 10 years in the future and what these might mean for that person’s way of life, and, of course, food habits. People were invited to look around in this guided scenery and then share with others some reflections on what would be relevant for them personally and for the food system 10 years ahead. How could the food system then look like and what is different from today? Such an interesting approach prepared participants think in plausible futures and spark interest in foresight thinking methods, opening up to futures thinking.

The summer school also hosted the session on inclusivity and roles of citizen participation in food systems transformation. The session aimed at taking a first step in exploring what, according to the CDIs, underrepresented communities are in the specific part of the food system CDIs are working on. Other goals were to understand who are in- and excluded in the current Knowledge and Innovation(K&I) system; to gain a wider understanding of how inclusivity in food system transformation is enacted; and to reflect on how the CDIs think about participation and inclusion and how they see it reflected in their work. The session gave participants some valuable insights into inclusivity ‘in practice’ and was a unique opportunity to hear from people whose daily work is related to K&I systems in regard to the whole food system.

The second day of the Summer School was specifically designed for bringing some tools to the CDIs’ tables to test system thinking and foresight methods in practice. This work was based on an approach with several steps that build on each other, derived from the University of Oxford approach to food system change. With this line-up of methods, CDIs, in cooperation with academic partners, could build step by step their own ideas about transforming their food system.

The “scaffolding” approach explored in the Summer School included:

1. Mental Time travel: Personal trip into a future scenario or single situation to look around.
2. Tetralemma: This tool is helpful for thinking about different assumptions for or paths into the future. The steps are to think: A) THE ONE, commonly assumed future, mainstream, dominant assumption, B) THE OTHER opposite, deviant assumption, C) BOTH, a combination, a future in between the first assumptions, D) NEITHER … NOR, a disruption or revolutionary assumption, and E) WILDCARD, a completely new and disruptive situation (maybe the original question becomes irrelevant)
3. Rich pictures of the current system: These are pictorial descriptions of how actors currently see their food system and its issues. Participants had created Rich Pictures in the previous Summer School.
4. Transformation statements are the formulation of a hypothetical future situation (here of a CDI) that is a desired one and has a time frame, formulated in present tense. It includes: Do what: intervention, By when: date, How: method, Why: to achieve project goal and ends up with a clear statement in less than 20 words.
5. BATWOVE is a sequence of steps and issues to consider when thinking about the desired future/transformation statement (here of a CDI). The following items have to be analysed: Who are the Beneficiaries of the proposed transformation, who are the Actors, the Transformation, what is the underlying Worldview of the transformation, who are the Owners of the transformation, who are the Victims of the transformation and what Environmental constraints might the transformation face?
6. Using Scenarios: in FOSTER, we had a scenario building process to generate and formulate context scenarios of the world or the environment around food systems from a European Union perspective. The scenarios were introduced once more and each CDI had to place itself, its own future and its own transformation statement into these different scenarios (during the workshop, we only had time for two different scenarios)
7. Backwards planning: In a table, CDIs started in the future with the transformation statement and its time horizon. Then each CDI systematically went back to the present, describing actions and conditions to achieve each previous step or milestone. This method trains backwards thinking from a goal to be achieved and can be widened into planning steps later.

In addition to going through the scaffolding exercises, participants heard from the Hungarian CDI about their experiences with using the different tools. This CDI had tested this approach in an earlier, separate workshop together with the University of Oxford and the Fraunhofer teams.

On the last day, we could summarize all learnings and reflect on the tools presented during our journey. CDIs were proposed to leave their thoughts on post-its reflecting on the usefulness of the exercises and how all these learnings can help to develop or re-organise their work.   

The aim of the conference is to set the scene for more collaborative approaches towards innovating the future agriculture and food system. Farmers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, researchers, living lab representatives and other food system innovators are invited to join the FOOD 2030 Networks Conference under the auspices of the Belgian EU Presidency.

FOSTER was represented by the project members:
–Project manager of FOSTER Kerstin Pasch (DIL) talked about reorienting innovation towards food system transformation;
-Rosina Malagrida (IrsiCaixa) represented her living lab in the Food 2030 Living Lab Network;
-Thom Achterbosch participated in the session on financing innovation in farming and food systems;
-Kerstin Cuhls raised her voice in one of the plenary sessions: “For transformation, we need to know more of the directions of the transformation and the long-term view. Think from the future.”

Framing of the conference
“Our current agriculture and food system is not sustainable – it threatens our health, destroys our ecosystems and contributes to climate breakdown.
If we do not act now, we will not be able to provide prosperity, wellbeing and food security for farmers, food producers and citizens in the future.
We cannot rely on incremental innovation, where technologies and efficiencies are slightly improved to solve the multitude of critical challenges and wicked problems that we are facing.
We need transformative innovation based on an inclusive systemic approach to ensure a just transition that is fair for everyone and enables a good life for all within planetary boundaries.
Living labs, communities of practice, and other co-creation initiatives bringing together innovators and other relevant stakeholders from rural and urban communities will be essential for supporting such transformative food system innovation.”

More information about the conference: https://food2030.eu/.

Focus group sessions were established as part of a baseline assessment of the change-driven initiatives (CDIs). The aim of this baseline assessment is to understand the CDIs’ ambitions, their theories of change and activities, to examine their target stakeholder groups, and their embedding in networks, and to understand relevant knowledge sources, how CDIs access knowledge and interact with the K&I system.

Six CDIs of FOSTER are organisations, foundations and associations working on food systems from numerous perspectives. They vary in their goals, activities, target groups and sizes. Each of the initiatives is embedded across different parts of the food system. Some of them are largely linked to digital agriculture, others aim to preserve their local traditions and support local production and consumption. Some of them hold ambitions of being a platform for stakeholders, where they can work on their own projects.

Within FOSTER, each CDI works in tandem with an academic partner (AP), who act as translators between CDIs and the formal academic system, as well as facilitators during the knowledge coproduction process. These focus groups were organized by academic partners in cooperation with CDIs and included three to six CDI members. In total, five focus groups sessions took place.

The aims of the focus groups were:

• To solicit and deeply understand CDIs claims, concerns and issues from within their own worldview;
• To create the research steps adopted for the particular case studies;
• To support the ongoing relationship-building between the academic partners of FOSTER and CDIs.

A brief summary after each session was written. Information from the focus groups was analysed and insights from the sessions were used for the further identification of the CDIs´ knowledge gaps and needs. 

Please find more information in the Deliverable “Consolidated status assessment report for 6 CDIs”.

FOSTER is a research project funded by Horizon Europe, designed around the need for a new vision for a Knowledge and Innovation (K&I) governance structure for Europe’s food system. It is a collaboration of scientists with civic initiatives, innovation advisors, living labs and advocacy groups, working in multi-actor partnership.  

The project aims to develop an evidence-based policy vision for a future knowledge and innovation system (FOKIS), that can effectively accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems across all EU member states.

The translation of insights from research into policy recommendations for key audiences in the EU is a specialised skill. For this, the consortium has established a panel of experts with significant experience in relevant policy processes, including a chair and one or more co-chairs.

The expert panel supports FOSTER to create lasting impact on the European Research Area for food systems. Based on the insights and recommendations from FOSTER research, the panel will target opportunities in policies of the EU to strengthen the Knowledge and Innovation System for food systems.  

The role of the panel is to elaborate FOSTER´s policy recommendations, aimed at:  

• Targeting key policy audiences for FOSTER’s research agenda and findings.  
• Translating research findings into relevant policy messages.  
• Tailoring policy recommendations to the current needs of these audiences.  

The Panel is chaired by Professor Janet Dwyer OBE, University of Gloucestershire (Ireland), a renowned expert in farm and rural development policy processes including in EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. The Panel includes experts in food systems science, foresight and knowledge networks, business innovation, citizen science, and research & innovation policy. A seat for a non-academic expert on communities underrepresented in K&I processes is still open; search among civil society, faith-based organization and social entrepreneurs is ongoing.   

 The panel will probe the opportunities for FOSTER to maximise its impact pathways towards policy during the remaining years of the project. It is in itself an experiment on the co-creation of policy impact from research. After a pre-meeting in September, the Expert Panel had its first substantive meeting online on October 20, 2023. The aim of the meeting was to gain insight into the research design of FOSTER and start with the development of the policy orientation of the panel.  

The FOSTER´s Summer School, organized by University of Oxford, has just taken place in the Netherlands!  It was hosted by Wageningen University & Research and the Food Transition Coalition.

Project partners from academia and Change Driven Initiatives (CDIs) from the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Hungary, Germany and Portugal, as well as further experts invited by the CDIs, gathered together for mutual learning and sharing experience with each other.

The idea of Summer School is to work together with academic partners, CDIs, innovation advisors and focus groups towards a better Knowledge and Innovation system and to share ideas, practices and experiences for having a common vision on how to build a future sustainable food system.

Start of the Summer School

The first day of the Summer School started with a small interactive roll call, and everyone could get to know each other better and become a bit closer. Friendly and positive atmosphere was in the air during the whole three-day training.

The 1^st day

Project manager of FOSTER Kerstin Pasch opened the day with a review of the project meeting in Novi Sad in February 2023, of the insights and activities gained there, which the consortium used to concretize its project visions and goals for the upcoming year.

During the first day, participants were able to review the food system mapping. CDIs had a perfect chance to think where they are in the food system chain and what they are going to achieve.

Attendees of the last webinar, which was a preparatory webinar devoted to setting a scene for the first FOSTER´s Summer School and to sharing terms and concepts used in food systems approaches, were able to provide their feedback on the concepts.

In the first day of the Summer School, all participants had a great opportunity to visit De Kleine Aarde. Since 2022, De Kleine Aarde has been all about agricultural transition with Coöperatie Ruimte De Kleine Aarde. Pioneering sustainable and circular living has always been the main goal for De Kleine Aarde. The Young Researchers, founded in 1972 by a journalist Sietz Leeflang, settled in this area in 1973 and pioneered for years with, among other things, organic agriculture, solar and wind energy and sustainable construction. More information can be found here: https://plaatsdekleineaarde.nl/. 

After an interesting visit to Kleine Aarde, there was an interactive session with the CDI groups on their challenges using the food system approach, and a mutual learning exercise, where the FOSTER´s team and external experts could learn from CDIs.

The first day concluded with a plenary session and feedback on mutual benefits of food systems and CDIs´ approaches.

The 2^nd day

The second day started with the introduction and discussion on different types of knowledge from ECSA and VU Athena. Interactive group discussions on boundaries, framings, stakeholders, and mapping with CDIs, external experts and FOSTER´s team followed by the discussion.

During the second day of the Summer School, the academic partners presented the Toolkit – a set of tools used in the food system for identifying the main instruments that can be used by the CDIs to identify and improve the specific problem or indicator. CDIs were proposed to share their own tools and experience on how those tools help them in their work.

Fruitful group discussions on mapping stakeholders and on Participatory Action Research (PAR) in the context of FOSTER´s plans were raised. The project partners also presented the current governance approaches and got reactions from CDIs.

A couple of interactive sessions between the plenary meetings helped the participants to rethink their understanding of power.

The 3^rd day

The last day of the Summer School was a summary of what was learned during these days. Participants could also reflect on what they got from this learning and what new opportunities they see for themselves.

The FOSTER´s teams presented their part of work within the project and plans for the future and in relation to CDIs. Participants were updated on building the FOSTER´s Knowledge Platform and the CDI groups were invited to participate in Horizon projects scanning. The next FOSTER´s Summer School training course will bring more opportunities, more ideas and, for sure, will set another high standard and more challenges.

The FOSTER´s Summer School 2023 was an incredible opportunity to learn, cooperate and look for the new solutions to the existing problems in the food system together. The project partners and external experts could hear from CDIs and those, in turn, could share their experience and thoughts. The FOSTER´s aim is to connect different actors of the food chain to make a new governance system for the food system, thus, its aim is to change the whole system and people´s way of thinking. And that ambitious goal is a bit closer now!