The recently launched EU Horizon 2020 FIT4FOOD2030 project is enabling four Ecsite members, together with three European Science Shops, to spearhead city-led innovation in the area of food and nutrition.

The FIT4FOOD2030 City Labs in Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Budapest, Milan, Sofia and Tartu will establish a European-wide transformative network and mobilise a wide array of local stakeholders with the shared goal to empower their communities, students of all ages, researchers, professionals and citizens. Participants will meet and engage, learn together and contribute to finding solutions to the challenges facing our food systems.

One of the first challenges ahead for these stakeholder networks is to identify the gaps and needs in formal and informal education on food and nutrition, at different levels and paying special attention to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) practices. This will form the basis for a visioning process which will challenge City Labs to envisage the kinds of skills, abilities and qualifications for new Food and Nutrition Systems.

The process won’t stop there: The locally-generated, FOOD2030-inspired visions will be pursued in development of transformative hands-on educational modules and trainings that build competences on food and nutrition through diverse learning approaches. This inspiring journey of prototyping and piloting will be captured in an open methodology toolkit that enables other institutions to develop comparable activities, scale up and continue the transformative process begun thus far, right in time to welcome a second wave of 7 City Labs in the second half of the project.

Come with us and the City Labs on this journey by staying tuned to www.fit4food.eu and joining the conversation with #FOOD2030EU!