3. Connecting Food Research with Urban Food Policies

There is often an unhelpful perception of a division between the worlds of research and policy. However, within the Food Trails project, researchers and city practitioners have become ‘critical friends’, providing a safe, supportive and productive environment for exchanging ideas and co-producing urban food policy interventions.  “It was the process of working together—researchers and policymakers—that resulted in policy changes,” noted Becca Jablonski.

 In this third episode of 'Food and the Cities', host Natasha Foote engages with Becca Jablonski, a member of the Food Trails Think Tank, co-Director of the Food Systems Institute at Colorado State University, and Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and Paul Milbourne, Professor of Human Geography in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University and a researcher with Food Trails. Together, they discuss:  How to bridge the gap between researchers and policymakers.How the Food Trails project overturned the relationship between research and cities.Innovative research frameworks for a better understanding of urban food systems. Moreover, this episode  takes a closer look at two cities from the Food Trails project—Funchal and Warsaw—to explore their specific initiatives and the outcomes they achieved. This podcast is brought to you by Comune di Milano and Slow Food Europe as part of the EU Horizon 2020 Food Trails project.  Food Trails is an EU Horizon 2020 project involving 11 cities, 3 universities, and 5 food organizations. Its goal is to promote more resilient, safe, fair, and diverse urban food systems through co-designed actions in Food 2030-led Living Labs, enabling the development of systemic urban food policies.