Ensuring societal considerations are met when translating science into policy for sustainable food system transformation

Background: A food system transformation is needed to address food and nutrition security, minimise impacts on planetary health, reduce climate change emissions, and contribute to equity, diversity, and the Sustainable Development Goals

Ensuring societal considerations are met when translating science into for sustainable food transformation

Peer reviewe

Ensuring societal considerations are met when translating science into policy for sustainable food system transformation

Background: A food system transformation is needed to address food and nutrition security, minimise impacts on planetary health, reduce climate change emissions, and contribute to equity, diversity, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Scope and approach: This paper summarizes findings of the European Commission's High Level Expert Group on Food Systems Science, which reviewed obstacles that prevent food systems policy from achieving society-wide impacts. These barriers include knowledge and translation gaps in food-related science-policy-interfaces (SPIs), insufficient attention to the priorities of diverse stakeholders, and a failure to adequately consider equity, diversity, political economy, and societal engagements. Key findings & conclusions: Three potential pathways can ensure science and policy support food systems transformation: (1) Adapt the current SPI landscape with extra resources and a wider mandate to ensure coordinated action across the full food system, (2) Enhance the current policy landscape with a range of multisectoral taskforces designed to fulfill specific functions such as creating an enhanced food systems data portal, and (3) Establish a “network of networks” to provide both global coordination as well as organize defined agendas at global through to regional scales. In embarking on these pathways, a revised science-policy-society landscape (SPSIs) should deliver the following core functions: (1) Engage and empower multi-stakeholder dialogue; (2) Build capacity at multiple scales to translate evidence into tangible real-world outcomes; (3) Ensure access to openly accessible data for the entire food system; (4) Use models, forecasts, and scenario building exercises to explore the potential future of food systems; (5) Produce assessment reports and policy publications; and (6) Establish fora for diplomacy that will be empowered to create standards set targets and establish policy

Food systems transformation requires science–policy–society interfaces that integrate existing global networks and new knowledge hubs

Sustainable food systems are key to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but food systems fall short on multiple fronts as they place pressure on natural capital and ecosystem services while generating significant greenhouse gas emissions. To future-proof food systems, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) called for a transformation of food systems that guarantees equitable access to affordable, healthy, and safe food, produced in fair and environment-friendly ways. Such a transformation will be challenging. Efficient science–policy interfaces (SPIs) that effectively bridge the local to global span of food systems in a coordinated way will be key to transformation. Effective SPIs need to support six key functions: forecasting and monitoring, capacity building, data collection, independent assessment, engagement and diplomacy3,4. We, the members of a European Commission high-level expert group (HLEG), have suggested three pathways to achieve effective SPIs: (a) strengthening and adapting existing SPIs with additional resources and a broader mandate to engage across the food sector and across scales and engage with society, (b) enhancing the multilateral institutions’ capacity to cooperate with member states and fund a series of task forces to fill priority knowledge and data gaps, and (c) creating a global coordination hub comprising multilateral institutions through collective investment in a ‘network of networks’