CDIs

CDIs & Citizen Science

FOSTER has a multi-actor approach and is a collaboration of academia with citizen initiatives, innovation advisors and advocacy groups. We group them together as Change-Driven Initiatives (CDI). CDIs act as ‘innovators of food systems at local, regional or national level’. They have specific knowledge and generate new knowledge through their work and their networks, but are not necessarily ‘citizen-led’ per se. In FOSTER their act as intermediaries and knowledge brokers between academics and underrepresented communities. Findings resulting from the processes of collaboration and joint learning between academic and CDI partners are reflected upon and, where appropriate, related to scientific findings. ‘Heterogeneous perspectives’ as mentioned in the FOSTERs’ project title come in by different actors: academic and CDI project partners and partners form their respective networks, other scientists from various disciplines who focus on the food system in their scientific work, as well as political decision-makers involved in FOSTER activities. In FOSTER, we have selected 6 CDIs, they are representative of underrepresented communities in Europe. Which communities these are varies among FOSTER’s 5 cases as shown in the graphic below: marginalized farmers (in the Serbian case), scattered citizens and citizen initiatives seeking to actively change specific parts of the food system (in the Dutch case), urban groups, to a greater or lesser extent marginalized, in need of information on and access to more healthy and sustainable diets (in the Spanish case and the German case), and small scale sellers of home produce (in the Hungarian case).