Context

The future health of the European people and the planet lies on our plate. It is crucial that the production and consumption of food enable environmental, social and economic sustainability. Collectively, the goals of the Farm to Fork strategy of the European Green Deal will be achieved aiming to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally friendly. This is in line with the global ambitions of the UN Sustainable Food Summit 2021.

Current food systems in Europe are facing several challenges, such as food insecurity, significant greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity, food waste, unsustainable business models, diversity and inclusiveness. A sustainable Food System (FS) for the EU is one “that provides and promotes safe, nutritious and healthy food of low environmental impact for all current and future EU citizens in a manner that itself also protects and restores the natural environment and its ecosystem services, is robust and resilient, economically dynamic, just and fair, and socially acceptable and inclusive. It does so without compromising the availability of nutritious and healthy food for people living outside the EU, nor impairing their natural environment.” 

Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6 2023-2024 work programme aligns with key EU and world policies and strategies on food systems. The EU-co-funded project FutureFoodS (“European partnership for a sustainable Future of Food Systems”), created under the Horizon Europe work programme, aims to address the challenges mentioned above by collectively achieve healthy, safe, environmentally friendly, socially secure, fair, and economically viable food systems for Europe. This includes current types of production, processing, distribution, and consumption. The Food2030 agenda will serve as a guide for this partnership, as well as the SCAR (Standing Committee on Agricultural Research) Food Systems Strategic Working Group, and the FutureFoodS Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda.

Objectives

FutureFoodS mission is to mobilize research and innovation in Europe to accelerate the transition towards food systems that function within planetary boundaries. This includes current types of production, processing, distribution, and consumption. FutureFoodS brings together 86 partners from 29 countries including national and regional authorities, funding agencies, universities, research institutes, foundations, competitiveness clusters. The long-term objective of all partners is to build a sustainable, inter-connected and territorialised European food system in 2050 and beyond.

The key objectives apply across 4 research areas:

Activities

In order to address its main challenges and reach its objectives regarding Sustainable Food System, FutureFoodS will implement 4 main activities:

• Harmonizing efforts by pooling research and innovation resources and programming 

FutureFoodS partnership will strategically bring together and coordinate resources and programmes from various stakeholders to support a comprehensive and systemic approach to research and innovation. This partnership focuses on consolidating national and European Research & Innovation efforts to maximise the transformation of food systems to sustainable food systems. In the course of this 10-year partnership, six joint calls for research and innovation proposals will be organized, with topics prioritized based on the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) which is continually updated according to recent knowledge.

• Launch of an observatory to track the state of the food systems transition 

An observatory will be launched within the FutureFoodS partnership to play a role in monitoring the progress of the transition to sustainable food systems and identifying potential change levers. The Food System Observatory is designed as a decision support tool which will support the policy makers and will highlight Research and Innovation gaps and needs. It will serve as an essential platform for collecting, analyzing and sharing data and insights on how food systems are changing and what impact these changes are having, and should allow evaluation of public policies. A participative approach will be implemented to ensure inclusion of all system actors, including policies. 

• Establishing a Knowledge Hub of Living Labs to maintain a participative approach 

In the FutureFoodS partnership, engagement through Living Labs plays an important role in developing sustainable food systems. Living Labs are interactive, real-life environments in which different stakeholders, such as policymakers, businesses, researchers, and consumers, work together to co-create innovative solutions. A knowledge hub will be set up based on the network of living labs. The idea is that by engaging these diverse groups in a collaborative development environment, the solutions resulting from this collaboration will be both practically applicable and widely supported.

• Sharing knowledge to strengthen the food systems community 

FutureFoodS emphasizes connecting, co-creating, and expanding the food systems communities. This includes promoting the project’s outcomes, updating the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), and conducting mapping and benchmarking activities at EU and global levels. These activities aim to strengthen and expand the FutureFoodS community, providing tools and actions to upscale and transfer knowledge to the different stakeholders, including practitioners and citizens.

Other comments

The project is not intended to address primary production.