On 24, 25, and 26February, FoodE held an online Winter School. The event was organised with a view to outlining and describing the main challenges that a practitioner may encounter when assessing the sustainability of city-region food systems from different perspectives: environmental, economic, social and business-wise.
Professionals from different institutions were responsible for its organisation: Dr. Martí Rufí-Salís (ICTA-UAB), Dr. Fabio de Menna (UniBo), Dr. Xavier Gabarrell (ICTA-UAB), Dr. Matteo Vittuari (UniBo), Dr. Bernd Pölling (FH-SWF), Dr. Giuseppina Pennisi (UniBo), Laura Brenes-Peralta (UniBo), Dr. Laura Garcia-Herrero (UniBo), Dr. Véronique Saint-Ges (INRAE), Dr. Francesco Orsini (UniBo).
The Winter School focused on three topics, with a different topic discussed each day. The days were arranged as follows:
- Day one: Environmental Assessment
- Day two: Economic and Social Assessment
- Day three: Business Models from a sustainability perspective
FoodE’s Winter School was mainly addressed to Master and PhD students to give them a chance to learn more about the ‘Sustainability Assessment of City-Region Food Systems’. In total 50 people participated. Afterwards, they were all asked to fill out a feedback survey about overall satisfaction. The organisation as well as the content and virtual platform was rated very positively, with an average above 8 (out of 10).
Winter School was made possible by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This initiative sets a precedent for hosting more events in the future, free of charge for interested students.