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Democratic directionality for transformative food systems research

Effective interfaces of knowledge and policy are critical for food system transformation. Here, an expert group assembled to explore research needs towards a safe and just food system put forward principles to guide relations between society, science, knowledge, policy and politics.

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Fig. 1: Interconnected principles for research for transformative food system policy.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the work and report prepared by the SCAR Expert Group (EG) on the 5th Foresight exercise ‘Natural resources and food systems: Transitions towards a ‘safe and just’ operating space’ (https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/resilience-and-transformation_en). The EG is an independent panel constituted by the European Commission and the Standing Committee for Agricultural Research. The views expressed in its report represent those of the EG members, and not the European Commission. The EG does not promote any political agenda or researcher self-interest. This manuscript is an independent exercise of the group, which builds on the experiences working as an expert group.

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J.D. and G.B. led the idea generation, writing and editing process, with active support from F.D., A.B. and S.T. All other authors played a crucial role in idea generation and contributed to writing and editing.

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Correspondence to Jessica Duncan.

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Authors were associated with the EU SCAR 5th Foresight Team. The team acts independently and in the public interest.

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Nature Food thanks Patrick Caron and Amanda Harding for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Duncan, J., DeClerck, F., Báldi, A. et al. Democratic directionality for transformative food systems research. Nat Food 3, 183–186 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00479-x

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