Issues
The Scientific meeting will address two main issues and cover several agricultural subsectors for emerging system innovations in the agro-food systems. The two issues are:
- The issue of analysis: Analysing the dynamics in agro-food systems, including system innovations, knowledge regimes and design practices that are currently ongoing.
- The issue of governance: Understanding how government agencies and other actors can organize themselves and what they can do to encourage and influence such system innovations, knowledge regimes and design settings in order to make the agro-food systems more sustainable.
The subsectors include (but are not limited to):
- animal production;
- arable farming;
- glasshouse horticulture;
- biomass production for fuel and fibre.
Key themes
Contributions should address one or more of these themes and the underlying questions. Either one or both of the two main issues indicated above (analysis and governance) should be addressed.
Understanding system innovations in the agro-food sector
- How can system innovations in the agro-food sector be characterised?
- What is the role of various actors in different phases?
- How are barriers associated with system innovations overcome?
- How can local initiatives disrupt existing structures?
- What is the role of changes in consumption preferences in system innovations?
Knowledge regimes in transition
- What is the resilience of scientific knowledge production?
- How do the ‘matters of concern’ about sustainability redefine the relation between scientific production and innovation?
- What are the types of problems that researchers, engineers and extensionists have to face to address sustainability?
Influencing Transitions in the agro-food systems
- What role can science and research play in influencing transitions?
- What kinds of interventions can governmental agencies most effectively make to ‘manage’ system innovations?
- What is the role of the public versus the private sector?
Design Practices in transition regimes
- What is the role of ‘system builders’ in different phases?
- How to shape and implement participatory design and settings of collective experiment?
- What are the frames and politics of reflective practitioners in situations of change?