Towards sustainable food systems through innovative networks in public catering

Sustainability of food systems inherently implies food security, but in search for cost savings, the decision‐makers tend to belittle the significance of food security, to overlook the various aspects of sustainability in statutory catering and to ignore the environmental, societal and cultural aspects of food. An extensive survey on the present status of statutory public catering shows, that although the severe natural circumstances present great challenges for food production in Finland, municipal public catering is still today largely based on domestically produced food. Thus, even in extreme circumstances national food security is possible. However, because food security is not seen as constituting an essential part of sustainable development (SD), the situation may alter in future. There is also large variation among Finnish municipalities as to how those involved in catering understand the concept SD, how SD has been accounted for and how it can be promoted in practice. In addition, there is very little direct co‐operation between researchers, extension and practical actors of municipal catering. The results imply that in order to encourage sustainable food consumption, the concept of SD should be brought clearly into the context of public catering. The municipalities differ as to the foci and development needs. Therefore, there are no universal solutions, but the solutions need to be slotted to the prevailing local circumstances and reconciled in mutual understanding among the actors. Innovative networks involving municipal actors, researchers and an expert as a broker provide one promising channel for finding the local way to improve sustainability of public catering. This study aims at reconnecting people to the origin of food in their own surroundings and encouraging them to actively promote sustainable food systems and sustainability in public catering through empowerment of the actors within innovative local networks. The presentation captures the results from the survey and discusses future perspectives of increasing sustainability within public catering in light of first experiences from the actors’ innovative networks

More and Better Jobs in Home-Care Services

[Excerpt] This study examines recruitment and retention measures in community-based care and support services for adults with disabilities and health problems. It focuses on 10 EU Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. It examines 30 case studies from these countries, analysing initiatives that were successful either in creating more jobs in the provision of health and social care for adults in the community or in improving the quality of jobs, with the aim of both attracting new recruits and retaining existing staff

Co-constructing a new framework for evaluating social innovation in marginalized rural areas

The EU funded H2020 project \u2018Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas\u2019 (SIMRA; www.simra-h2020.eu) has the overall objective of advancing the state-of-the-art in social innovation. This paper outlines the process for co- developing an evaluation framework with stakeholders, drawn from across Europe and the Mediterranean area, in the fields of agriculture, forestry and rural development. Preliminary results show the importance of integrating process and outcome-oriented evaluations, and implementing participatory approaches in evaluation practice. They also raise critical issues related to the comparability of primary data in diverse regional contexts and highlight the need for mixed methods approaches in evaluation

Social exclusion and care for the elderly: Theoretical concepts and changing realities in European welfare states

How approaches in elderly care should be structured to counteract processes of social marginalisation in old age is in the focus of this discussion paper. On a theoretical basis the paper draws on concepts of social exclusion developed in international comparative welfare state research. For the analysis of processes of social exclusion in old age, the ageing process is defined on a wide basis ranging from genetic, social, cultural to environmental components. The term inclusive care describes characteristics of approaches in elderly care, which enable processes of social exclusion to be counteracted. Approaches in elderly care have been re-structured in most member countries of the European Union since the beginning of the 1990s. With the background of the defined characteristics of inclusive care modes of financing, access criteria and procedures, diversification and integration of service facilities and offers as well as the combination with informal care are investigated. The characteristics decisive for inclusive care are defined such as universal accessibility related to social rights, a diversified and integrated care system, a social model of care delivery and the acknowledgement, support and cooperation with informal carers. The findings prove the difficulties and obstacles encountered by certain EU-member countries to fulfil the criteria. Furthermore, according to their risk of experiencing processes of social exclusion, inequalities among different groups of elderly people have become apparent. -- Im Zentrum des Discussion Papers steht die Frage nach adäquaten Ansätzen in der Alten-betreuung zur Verhinderung von sozialer Marginalisierung älterer Menschen. Konzeptionell wird auf Ansätze der international vergleichenden Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung zur Debatte um soziale Ausgrenzung (social exclusion) zurückgegriffen, die auf die beiden Bereiche Altern und Betreuung älterer Menschen zugespitzt werden. Die Analyse sozialer Aus-grenzung erfordert eine Definition des Alterns-Prozesses, der neben genetischen insbesondere soziale, kulturelle und umweltbezogene Komponenten einschließt. Der Begriff Inclusive Care benennt Charakteristika der Altenbetreuung, die es ermöglichen, Prozessen sozialer Ausgrenzung im Alter entgegenzuwirken. Seit den 1990er Jahren wurden in den meisten Mitgliedsländern der Europäischen Union die Ansätze in der Altenbetreuung restrukturiert. Vor dem Hintergrund der Definition der Charakteristika von Inclusive Care werden Finanzierung, Zugangskriterien, Diversifikation und Integration von Dienstleistungen sowie die Verbindung zur informellen Pflege untersucht. Dabei erweisen sich ein universeller Zugang zu Dienstleistungen verbunden mit sozialen Rechten, ein ausdifferenziertes aber integriertes Versorgungssystem, ein soziales Modell der Versorgung und die Anerkennung, Unterstützung sowie die Kooperation mit informell Pflegenden als entscheidend. Die Ergebnisse zeigen aber auch die Schwierigkeiten in unterschiedlichen europäischen Ländern auf, die Anforderungen zu erfüllen. Deutlich werden zudem Ungleichheiten zwischen verschiedenen Gruppen älterer Menschen, die in unterschiedlicher Art und Weise und Ausmaß von dem Risiko sozialer Ausgrenzung bedroht sind.

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Strategic Research Agenda for organic food and farming

The TP Organics Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) was finalised in December 2009. The purpose of the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) is to enable research, development and knowledge transfer that will deliver relevant outcomes – results that will contribute to the improvement of the organic sector and other low external input systems. The document has been developed through a dynamic consultative process that ran from 2008 to 2009. It involved a wide range of stakeholders who enthusiastically joined the effort to define organic research priorities. From December 2008 to February; the expert groups elaborated the first draft. The consultative process involved the active participation of many different countries. Consultation involved researchers, advisors, members of inspection/certification bodies, as well as different users/beneficiaries of the research such as farmers, processors, market actors and members of civil society organisations throughout Europe and further afield in order to gather the research needs of the whole organic sector

Urban food strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: what's specific and what's at stake?

Integrating a larger set of instruments into Rural Development Programmes implied an increasing focus on monitoring and evaluation. Against the highly diversified experience with regard to implementation of policy instruments the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework has been set up by the EU Commission as a strategic and streamlined method of evaluating programmes’ impacts. Its indicator-based approach mainly reflects the concept of a linear, measure-based intervention logic that falls short of the true nature of RDP operation and impact capacity on rural changes. Besides the different phases of the policy process, i.e. policy design, delivery and evaluation, the regional context with its specific set of challenges and opportunities seems critical to the understanding and improvement of programme performance. In particular the role of local actors can hardly be grasped by quantitative indicators alone, but has to be addressed by assessing processes of social innovation. This shift in the evaluation focus underpins the need to take account of regional implementation specificities and processes of social innovation as decisive elements for programme performance.

Social Innovation in Service Delivery: New Partners and Approaches

[Excerpt] This report presents the findings of a research project exploring the involvement of new partners – in particular, the social partners, civil society and people in vulnerable situations – in social innovation. For the purposes of the research, ‘social innovation’ is defined as new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously resolve societal challenges, meet social needs and create new social relationships among the groups concerned. Social innovation can involve such aspects as new participation in decision-making, services affecting the social situation of specific target groups (provided commercially or not) and changes in social care systems. It is part of cultural development and societal change. The research was carried out at EU level – focusing especially on the role of the European Social Fund (ESF) in social innovation – and in six Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Sweden. It examined the innovation and social partnership culture in each country, and analysed to what extent national-level policies have been triggered by EU policy. The research also includes three case studies carried out in Ireland, Slovenia and Sweden, presenting initiatives that the social partners, or those in vulnerable situations, have been involved in designing and implementing. The objective of this study is to inform, with an evidence-based approach, the policy debate on social innovation, and contribute to a better understanding of effective and sustainable processes. The study also aims to explore how social innovation can be most effectively supported in different phases: from initiation, through consistent delivery of good quality services, to identification of good practice

Briefing paper 'On the European workforce for health'

A critique of the EC report 'On the European Workforce for Health', together with workshop conclusions