Bari Capacity Building and Team Building Meeting 2025

Enhancing Contributions to the Food Systems Observatory through an In-Person Team-Building Meeting

From 3 to 5 November 2025, the partners of the food system observatory of the FutureFoodS Partnership gathered at CIHEAM Bari, Campus Cosimo Lacirignola (Valenzano) for an intensive three-day capacity building and team building meeting dedicated to strengthening shared competencies and advancing the co-design of the European Food Systems Observatory.

After more than a year of online collaboration, this meeting represented the first opportunity for partners to work together in person, enabling deeper exchanges, shared learning, and a renewed sense of collective ownership.

The objectives of the meeting were to consolidate the knowledge generated within the program, map partners’ competencies for food systems monitoring across the four transition challenges addressed by FutureFoodS, connect prior experiences to the emerging conceptual framework of the Observatory, engage new partners, and identify pragmatic next steps towards the development of the monitoring approach and federated data infrastructure.

The programme included collaborative mapping sessions, reflection circles, presentations of the food systems framework and the data model, discussions on the vision and conceptual structure of the Observatory, and engagement with external stakeholders through a fishbowl dialogue and dedicated working groups. These activities helped refine the Observatory’s conceptual foundations and strengthen alignment among partners.

The meeting also included a visit to Bari’s historical centre and a team-building activity at Villa Fenicia, where participants explored local agricultural traditions and took part in a zero-waste Mediterranean cooking experience. These shared moments contributed to enhancing cohesion and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Advances made towards transition monitoring of the EU food system

The meeting delivered significant progress by fostering a shared understanding of the Observatory’s conceptual framework among all participants. Partners engaged in a detailed mapping of skills and competencies, which provided a clear picture of the expertise available within the network. Discussions also led to the refinement of the FutureFoodS Food Systems Framework, breaking it down into interconnected elements that will directly inform the design of the monitoring system.

Importantly, the work carried out during the meeting also enabled the identification of how the Observatory aligns with and supports the four transition challenges captured by the research areas of the strategic research and innovation agenda (SRIA). This preliminary mapping represents an essential step toward ensuring that the monitoring system will be fully embedded within the broader strategic structure of the Partnership. This alignment process is conceived as an ongoing activity that will continue and be further consolidated during the 2nd instalment.

The event strengthened relationships and promoted interdisciplinary teamwork, creating a more cohesive and collaborative environment. Moreover, it established a set of concrete next steps for advancing the Observatory and its data system, while simultaneously increasing partner engagement and reinforcing a sense of collective ownership over the initiative.

Participants

The meeting brought together a diverse range of institutions, including the Agricultural University of Plovdiv, BfR, CIHEAM Bari, Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA), the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE), the Institute for Research in Circular Economy and Environment “Ernest Lupan” (IRCEM), the Institute of Public Health of North Macedonia (IJZRSM), the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), the Ministry of University and Research (MUR), the National Coordination Center for Sustainable Food Systems (AGES), the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), the Research Centre for Food and Nutrition (CREA), the University of Florence (UNIFI), the University of Food Technologies (UFT), the University of Ljubljana (BF UL), and Wageningen University & Research (WUR). Representatives from these institutions, along with other partners from the wider FutureFoodS and PRIMA communities, actively contributed to the discussions.

Organisation

Coordination was entrusted to and supervised by the Organisation Team composed of Maroun El Moujabber and Francesco Bottalico and the entire CIHEAM Bari team, with Scientific Coordination led by Silvia Scaramuzzi and Francesca Danese (University of Florence), Thom Achterbosch and Bobby Tsvetkov (Wageningen Social and Economic Research), ensuring a collaborative process that was consistent, well-structured and forward-looking.

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