New research led by the Environmental Change Institute identifies five interconnected barriers to food system transformation across Europe and the UK, and sets out four priorities for research investment.
The report, Moving the needle on transforming food systems: What’s blocking progress in Europe and the UK and where investments can help, was commissioned by Wellcome and brings together research mapping, surveys, interviews and workshops with researchers and changemakers working to transform food systems.
It finds that generating more evidence alone will not be enough to drive change. Barriers include power imbalances across food system actors, unfavourable policy and institutional frameworks, polarised public and political debate, fragmentation between research and practice, and a gap between evidence and action.
The research involved collaborators from TABLE, the Centre for Food Policy at City St George’s, Wageningen University & Research and IDDRI together with a number of European Think Tanks.
Five barriers to change
- The research identified five interconnected barriers that can prevent evidence from leading to action:
- Structural and power imbalances, which can influence whose voices and interests shape food system decisions.
- Unfavourable policy and institutional frameworks, which can make it harder to put evidence into practice.
- Polarised public and political debate, which can make constructive discussion and action more difficult.
- Fragmentation between research and practice, limiting opportunities to develop and apply knowledge together.
- A gap between evidence and action, with research not always reaching the people or processes where it could support change.
The research also found that food systems research and funding remain concentrated in particular countries, institutions and disciplines. While there are strong research networks across Europe and the UK, this concentration can reinforce existing hierarchies and leave some issues, including equity and governance, less well explored.
Researchers also often focus on diagnosing problems, while less attention is given to understanding how change happens in practice – including what policies work, how they can be implemented, and how political and economic barriers can be overcome.
Dr Monika Zurek, Food System Transformation Group Lead at the Environmental Change Institute and project lead, said:
Transforming food systems requires more than generating new evidence. We need to think differently about how research is designed, funded and connected to the people working to create change. That means building stronger relationships between researchers, policymakers and practitioners, and supporting research that can help us understand not only what needs to change, but how change can happen in practice.”
Four priorities for research investment
Based on these findings, the report identifies four areas where investment could make research more useful in supporting food system transformation:
- Reorient research towards action, including more applied research, evidence synthesis, policy evaluation and analysis of the political and economic conditions that shape what is possible.
- Strengthen links between evidence and decision-making, involving people working in policy and practice throughout the research process and making findings more accessible and useful to different audiences.
- Support long-term, multi-actor collaboration, creating the time, trust and resources needed for researchers, policymakers, practitioners and other stakeholders to work together.
- Develop more effective narratives for change, using evidence-based and co-developed approaches to engage with public and political debate.
The report highlights that there is no single intervention that will transform food systems. Instead, progress is likely to come from a portfolio of actions working together over time, with investment supporting both immediate opportunities and longer-term, more transformative approaches.
From evidence to action
The findings were discussed at a webinar on 22 October, bringing together researchers, policymakers, funders and others interested in food system transformation.
Titled From evidence to action: rethinking research for food system transformation, the webinar explored what research and research funding could do differently to better support change, drawing on the experiences of changemakers across Europe and the UK.
The report was funded by Wellcome. The research was led by Dr Monika Zurek and the Food Systems Transformation Group at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
The global report is accompanied by country reports examining food system transformation in France, Ireland, Spain, Poland and the UK.
Read the full global report: Moving the needle on transforming food systems: What’s blocking progress in Europe and the UK and where investments can help