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About the project

FOCUSE aims to research the development of circular food systems within urban environments across Europe. The project seeks to address an array of complex challenges associated with transitioning to more sustainable, efficient, and resilient urban food production and consumption systems.

So, by exploring, envisioning, developing, and analysing innovative approaches to stimulate more circular-based food production, the project will contribute to enhancing knowledge surrounding food provisioning, resource efficiency, and sustainability within European cities.

To complement the project’s aim, three overarching objectives have been created:

O1: To envision and identify the potential for improving resource efficiency and new product development through more circular use of materials, residuals, and energy in urban food systems.

O2: To analyse, assess, and test the implications of new circular-based food production methods in urban areas to improve and advance the sustainability and viability of circular food provisioning in urban areas.

O3: To Improve and facilitate knowledge between different stakeholders and academic disciplines for the development of circular urban food production systems.

Significance of the research project:

Faced with an ever-increasing global population, of which the sharpest increases will take place in cities, urban areas are, therefore, an essential study focus. This trend, coupled with current and prospective urban farming systems relying on external material and energy inputs while lacking strong integration into local urban infrastructure, material, and energy flows, makes urban farming systems susceptible to shocks. It is, therefore, essential to find circular solutions for more sustainable and resilient food production methods within urban environments.

As a result, circular solutions linked to industrial and urban symbiosis within cities have the potential to alleviate external pressures such as supply chain shocks. Furthermore, urban areas face multifarious challenges related to food production and consumption, including resource inefficiency, environmental impacts, and social inequality. So, by employing inter and transdisciplinary methods, the FOCUSE project aims to address these issues by:

  • Focusing our understanding on the current provisioning and production of food in urban areas.
  • Envisioning circular food production approaches in urban areas to realise their possibilities.
  • Employing experimental tests of new methods to produce foods from residual materials.
  • Reviewing the new food production method’s feasibility, sustainability, and viability.
  • Studying the new food production method’s opportunities and obstacles for further implementation and scalability.

The project's working packages

WP1: Current systems, context, and resources

Description:

WP1 focuses on establishing the context required to study current food production and consumption patterns within CRFSs. As a result, WP1 caters for the development of more circular food systems within the subsequent working packages.

This WP will do the following:

  1. Identify current urban food production systems within specific city case studies
  2. Perform an MFA to map the input and outputs of food systems within city regions
  3. Identify food consumption patterns in CRFSs.

WP2: Envisioning circular food systems

Description:

WP2 addresses the results obtained in WP1, of which will be used to envision future circular food systems in the CRFSs, and their outcomes. As a result, WP2 enables the exploration and establishment of potential resource synergies between urban agriculture, urban inhabitants, and the built environment.

This WP will do the following:

  1. Co-design the circular urban food systems of the future
  2. Design systems with synergistic links between resources and infrastructures
  3. Apply an urban morphological theory for circular urban food production
  4. Compare and typologize urban agricultural systems with a morphological perspective

WP3: Circular urban farming and new foods & products

Description:

WP3 concentrates on developing new food provisioning techniques to implement, with insights gained from WP2 in the CRFSs. As a results, test sites will act as urban laboratories for various scientific experiments that will analyse the potential for urban residuals to act as material input for new products.

This WP will do the following:

  1. Define and set up farming systems for testing and integration within cities
  2. Identify the potential of urban residuals as new inputs and the valorisation of urban waste for new products
  3. Explore novel product valorisation and cultivation protocols

WP4: Conditions and business models for circular food systems

Description:

WP4 will review the enabling conditions required for developing circular processes and synergies to improve the resource efficiency of circular urban food systems.

The WP will do the following:

  1. Identify the societal and organisational barriers and opportunities
  2. Undergo a policy analysis of developing urban food systems and synergies
  3. Investigate the potentiality of creating markets for circular urban food systems

WP5: Sustainability and viability of circular-urban food transitions

Description:

WP5 enables the assessment of the viability, sustainability, and resilience of circular-urban food systems, their scenarios, and applications, that were identified at the micro and macro level in WP2 and WP3.

The WP will do the following:

  1. Perform sustainability assessments of circular food production systems
  2. Investigate the societal acceptance and perception of urban circular food systems
  3. Perform an urban metabolism analysis
  4. Perform urban food system resilience assessments

WP6: Dissemination and project communication

Description:

WP6 focuses on synthesising the results gathered from WP1 and WP5 and provides continuous dissemination throughout the project’s duration.

The WP will do the following:

  1. Set up an elementary school challenge that focuses on the future (circular) food systems
  2. Set up an Urban Farm challenge and competition for European university students
  3. Set up an exhibition in collaboration with a museum to communicate the project’s results
  4. Contribute to scientific and popular science (publishing of papers, articles, and reports)

The FOCUSE project consortium

The FOCUSE project is a collaborative effort that involves a diverse range of partners across Europe, with each partner bringing unique expertise, and resources to support the development and scaling of circular urban food systems. The consortium comprises eight key partners.

Funded by the EU partnership Driving Urban Transitions.
Co-founded by the European Union.

EU-emblem "Co-funded by the European Union".
Logotyp för EU-organet Drivin Urban Transitions.
Last updated: 2024-11-08