Planning for Food Systems: Community-University Partnerships for Food-Systems Transformation

Whittaker, Jennifer; Clark, Jill K.; SanGiovannni, Sarah; Raja, Samina

doi:10.18060/21471

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Collaboration. Universities are well positioned to support food system planning efforts and have many resources that can enrich municipal efforts (Whittaker, Clark, SanGiovannni, & Raja, 2017). Likewise, working with local governments and community leaders provides a pragmatic avenue for research, keeps researchers grounded in their own communities, and connects students with practical experiences.…”

Section: Factors Contributing To Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning for a Resilient Urban Food System: A Case Study from Baltimore City, Maryland

Biehl¹,

Buzogany

Baja³

et al. 2018

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

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Many natural and non-natural hazards threaten food security, especially in urban areas where growing populations place extra demands on the food supply. Ensuring stable food security before, during, and after disasters requires resilient food systems that can withstand and recover from disruptions. However, few U.S. cities have considered food systems in disaster preparedness or resilience planning. This reflective case study from the participant-observer perspective examines

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Section: Factors Contributing To Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning for a Resilient Urban Food System: A Case Study from Baltimore City, Maryland

Biehl¹,

Buzogany

Baja³

et al. 2018

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

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“…Universities with sustainability expertise can be strong partners for cities interested in and incumbent to implement sustainability measures [4,5]. CUPs are increasingly common in sustainability science and practice and represent a new functional paradigm for both partners [6,7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transferring Sustainability Solutions across Contexts through City–University Partnerships

et al. 2018

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Abstract:The urgency of climate change and other sustainability challenges makes transferring and scaling solutions between cities a necessity. However, solutions are deeply contextual. To accelerate solution efforts, there is a need to understand how context shapes the development of solutions. Universities are well positioned to work with cities on transferring solutions from and to other cities. This paper analyses five case studies of city-university partnerships in three countries on transferring solutions. Our analysis suggests that understanding the interest, the action on sustainability, and the individual and collective sustainability competences on the part of the city administration and the university can help facilitate the transfer of sustainability solutions across contexts. We conclude that the nature of the city-university partnership is essential to solution transfer and that new and existing networks can be used to accelerate progress on the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

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“…Community service learning stimulates students to work on real-world problems and conduct research in, with and for society, and points to the importance of universitycommunity partnerships. Ideally, community partners and residents are stimulated by and trained to be actively involved in the research process (Whittaker et al, 2017). Moreover, coalitions of communities and universities could also contribute to competence building among people outside these partnerships.…”

Section: Strategies For Competence Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, coalitions of communities and universities could also contribute to competence building among people outside these partnerships. For example, the University of Buffalo (New York) formed a partnership with a coalition of community partners and trained residents to support them in introducing the topic of food to the local policy and planning process (Whittaker et al, 2017).…”

Section: Strategies For Competence Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Modifications to tenure systems and the ways in which universities are assessed and appraised could help significantly in this respect. Such modified assessment and appraisal systems need to be more holistic and should assess education, research and collaborations in an integrated manner (Whittaker et al, 2017). Institutionalisation of educational and research approaches could be stimulated by the creation of (transnational) alliances, platforms and centres that give academics an incentive to collaborate with non-academic partners (Caniglia et al, 2018;Dlouhá et al, 2017;Mulá et al, 2017;Soini et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Need For Capacity Buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From talking the talk to walking the walk

den Boer

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Stimulating the transformation towards more sustainable, healthy, and just food systems is an urgent challenge. However, this is also a highly difficult challenge, since food systems are complex systems that are resistant to change. The type of research that explicitly aims to facilitate systemic change, called transformative research, has the potential to accelerate sustainable food system transformation. Such research is characterised by knowledge co-creation, experimentation, and learning and reflexivity among a variety of different actors. However, to date, transformative research is scarce in practice. With this thesis we aim to contribute to an increased insight into how we can better understand and enhance the transformative capacity of research, so that it can act as a catalyst for sustainable food system transformation. To this end, we performed six studies that followed an emergent design and were conducted in the context of the European Union project FIT4FOOD2030 (2017–2020). With the first two studies, we aim to increase our understanding of research as a catalyst for food system transformation. We argue that in order to scale up transformative research, we need to transform the systems in which knowledge is produced and used, which we refer to as Research & Innovation (R&I) systems. Just as food systems, R&I systems can be best viewed as complex systems that are resistant to change. We introduce the FIT4FOOD2030 project as an example of a multi-level boundary innovation that aims to trigger the transformation of food systems and their coupled R&I systems. In the last four studies of this thesis, we zoom in on two capacity building strategies that we consider key for supporting such a coupled systems transformation, namely: competence development and network building. Our findings show that transformative research approaches require different competences among a variety of actors, transformative researchers in particular, which, we argue, need to be seen in relation to envisioned actor roles. Examples of important actor roles are that of change agent, knowledge broker, and reflexive facilitator. Higher education institutes have an essential role to play in stimulating such competence development among (future) professionals by institutionalising transformative research approaches. This requires the development of novel educational programmes that more strongly connect to regional food networks, such as Food Policy Networks (FPNs), development of support mechanisms for teachers and researchers, and a structural integration of training and learning activities within transformative projects such as FIT4FOOD2030. R&I policy innovation is essential to create an enabling environment for transformative research approaches, such as Real-world Labs, and to stimulate portfolios of transformative projects so that projects can effectively build upon each other over longer periods of time. Based on our findings, we propose future research into 1) effective (combinations of) strategies for competence development among (future) professionals, referring to research into the institutionalisation of transformative research approaches in higher education institutes as well as research into the dynamics of translocal learning processes among professionals engaged in transformative projects, 2) effective strategies for competence development among children, 3) the functioning of and dynamics within transformative research formats, such as Real-world Labs, 4) the current state of food systems research, referring to the need for quantitative studies to investigate whether, and to what extent, a trend is visible towards transformative research for food system transformation, and finally, 5) the institutionalisation of transformative innovations as well as the deliberate destabilisation of unsustainable cultures structures and practices in both food systems and R&I systems.

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Planning for Food Systems: Community-University Partnerships for Food-Systems Transformation

Cited by 7 publications

References 22 publications

Planning for a Resilient Urban Food System: A Case Study from Baltimore City, Maryland

Planning for a Resilient Urban Food System: A Case Study from Baltimore City, Maryland

Transferring Sustainability Solutions across Contexts through City–University Partnerships

From talking the talk to walking the walk

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