Projects that SLU Future Food financially supports and is a partner in are listed here. All projects are important for sustainable food systems and most of them have a cross-disciplinary approach.
The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is part of the new large-scale strategic innovation program SustainGov, which has received funding from Vinnova, Formas, and the Swedish Energy Agency through the Impact Innovation call. The program aims to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society.
SLU Future Food is involved in the project Society for transformative conversations. The aim is no less than to contribute to a more democratic communication by developing methods that can be used in society. Improving our ability to really listen to one another and to grasp the perspectives of others are at the very core of the project, as a way to a more sustainable society.
SLU Future Food participates in Vinnova's call "A new recipe for the food system". The call is part of a long-term approach from Vinnova for key players to jointly develop capacity and conditions to meet the need for the system and policy development that enables the transformation of the Swedish food system.
The overarching vision of the programme Mistra Food Futures is to create a science-based platform to enable transformation of the Swedish food system into one that is sustainable (in all three dimensions: environmental, economic and social), resilient and delivers healthy diets. Core parSLU Future Food supports Mistra Food Futures with coordination and communication.
Food & Cities is a collaboration between SLU Future Food and SLU Urban Futures. The project communicates SLU’s existing research and aims to create new encounters between different disciplines and sectors. The project seeks to identify knowledge gaps and cross-disciplinary research questions and investigates how a long-term thematic focus on food and cities could be established at SLU.
The Futures Lab at SLU is a joint project between the future platforms SLU Future Food and SLU Urban Futures. The purpose of the Futures Lab is to strengthen the participants' and, by extension, SLU's ability to work with a futures perspective in research, but it is also expected to contribute to new cross-disciplinary meetings and research issues.
In collaboration between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the University of Oxford, and Wageningen University and Research, “Table” seeks to facilitate informed discussions about how the food system can become sustainable, resilient, just, and ultimately “good”.
How does collaboration on circular economy projects work in practice? How do the actors involved talk? How are decisions made? Do the actors disagree with each other? How does this collaboration lead to concrete actions? These are some of the questions that this research project is trying to answer.
Starting in August 2024, SLU Future Food has initiated a new cross-disciplinary read and reflect circle lead by the educator and facilitator Pernilla Glaser. The circle will host four occasions during the fall 2024 and welcomes colleagues from both SLU and Uppsala University.
Land Futures is new area of inquiry that brings together research in the natural sciences with humanities and social sciences to explore imaginative, achievable, long-term sustainable futures for humans and more-than-humans organised around rethinking land use and development.
Meet the future of meat. This project aims to reduce the state of polarisation around livestock production and meat consumption, by communicating the evidence, engaging different perspectives through moderated dialogues, and discussing future scenarios. The project is a collaboration between SLU, the University of Oxford, and Wageningen University & Research, and has amongst other things resulten in a 9-episode podcast.
Together with researchers at SLU and Interaction Lab at the University of Skövde, SLU Holding is building a prototype for a computer game about food and the environment to test at teachers and students in high school.
This project examines the role of fats in sustainable food systems with regard to both health and environmental aspects, including current consumption and production patterns, use of different types and sources of fats, and health outcomes from consumption of various fatty acids.
This project examines both the current state of research regarding plant protection in Sweden and what knowledge gaps there are and how new research findings on plant protection are communicated to farmers via advisers. Photo: Jenny Svennås-Gillner, SLU.
This study examines cutting-edge innovations for urban food production. The aim is to identify and map initiatives that drive this development and to create an interdisciplinary working group for further research in the field.
Are local food systems a solution to achieve global sustainability goals? This project examines the potential of local food systems to drive a sustainable transformation of food production and consumption.
How can collaboration between researchers and reindeer herders contribute to new ways of connecting producers and consumers of reindeer herding products? This will be addressed in a cross-disciplinary project that will lead to more research, collaboration and dissemination of knowledge in the field.
The bigger the better? Or small is beautiful? This research Project develop four different agricultural visions. The aim is to conceptualise different problems and opportunities for a future more sustainable food production and the need for societal environmental solutions.
The research program "Sustainable diets from sustainable production systems - Focus milk" ranges from the individual cow, to environmental impact on farm level, to benefits and new use of grass forage and to a combination of environmental and public health for diet recommendations.
How can the sustainability of future production systems for meat and milk be improved? This cross-disciplinary project will model and evaluate production systems for pork, milk and beef, taking environmental, economic and social aspects into account.
