RESHAPE

Reshaping food systems: value change transformation through reconnection

Introduction

RESHAPE aims at characterizing food systems to co-design and test innovative and transformational strategies bridging the disconnection between people and food for sustainability and resilience through mapping of food value chains, future thinking, citizen science and art-based approaches.

Five Living Labs (LLs) across Europe will serve as entry points: strawberries and wild greens in Spain, Gouda cheese in the Netherlands, grass-fed meat in Denmark, and fish from artisanal fisheries in Turkey. These LLs represent a diverse range of food systems: from localised to globalised, across varied socio-economic, political and ecological contexts and with top-down (policies), bottom-up (fishers/farmers led) and mixed transformation approaches.

Agroecology, Agri-food systems, Transformational change, Value networks, Social values, Co-creation

2026-2029

Background

Urbanization, specialization and the industrialization of telecoupled food systems have disconnected people from their food, obscuring society’s recognition of humans as part of the natural world and eroding relational values.

Social values shape the configuration of food systems, from farm to table: widespread disconnection from the social-ecological dynamics behind food is a critical barrier to transformative change towards sustainable and resilient food systems. Despite globalization, certain products and their value chains significantly shape territories, either exacerbating disconnection or offering opportunities for reconnection.

What we do

  • Ensuring a transversal participatory research programme facilitating multi-stakeholder engagement

  • Characterizing the five value chains by combining anthropological multi-sited ethnography, life cycle assessment, and environmentally-extended input-output analysis.

  • Examining the socio-cultural dimensions of relationships between society and food systems through knowledge synthesis exercises, interviews, and surveys

  • Analysing governance approaches to assess their contributions to transformational change in food systems

  • Co-designing and testing innovative, participatory, and transdisciplinary strategies, including future thinking, citizen science, and arts, to foster value and behavioural changes.

Expected impact on food system transformation

RESHAPE will employ case-sensitive, mixed-method, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to address the entirety of food systems, engaging processes from production to consumption, including processing, distribution, marketing, and preparation.

RESHAPE’s ambition however, is not only to generate new knowledge that can support and facilitate LLs in following their theories of change, but also to contribute to co-design and test innovative and disruptive strategies for reshaping food systems and reconnecting them with society.

Implementation and plans to reach target groups

The participatory research approach of RESHAPE will ensure the visibility, uptake, and long-term impact of the project's results. We will develop targeted and context-sensitive activities tailored to the needs and realities of each stakeholder group and LL through a range of accessible and inclusive formats—from co-designed visual materials and citizen science tools to participatory artistic interventions, infographics and policy briefs. Targeted dissemination towards policy makers at different scales will be implemented.

Partners of the project

  • Elisa Oteros-Rozas, Spain

    Mail; elisa.oteros@ebd.csic.es

    • Elisa Oteros Rozas, Laura Aceituno, Marta Rivera Ferre from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain

    • Mario Torralba, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), The Netherlands

    • Jessica Milgroom, University of Córdoba - Instituto de Sociología y Estudios Campesinos (ISEC-UCO), Spain

    • Irmak Ertöor and Pinar Ertör-Akyazi, Bogazici University (BU), Turkey

    • Nina Möeller and Martin Pedersen, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Denmark

    • Martin Bruckner, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Austria

    • Michael Kjerkegaard, Eskelyst, Denmark

    • Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Spain

    • Karin Fessl, Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Austria

    • TÜBİTAK - The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

    • Dutch Research Council (NWO)

    • Grønt Udviklings- og Demonstrationsprogram (GUDP)