Social innovation and technology transfer in food value chain

A change is claimed toward more sustainable food systems that reconcile production and consumption in multiple dimensions. Recent research considers such organisations as paths of "social innovation", understood as the collective response to community needs, from perceived problems to opportunities, through technological, social processes and collective actions (Howaldt and Schwarz, 2010) that develop novel solutions. In this perspective also technological innovations become forms of social innovation (Murray R. et al., 2010), as well as new products, processes, approaches, ideas. Social Innovation becomes the set of projects capable of solving society's needs through collaboration and social participation. By applying social innovation perspective and participatory approaches in food systems design, civil society is called thus in first person to play an essential role (e.g., PGS – Participatory Guarantee Systems) in the redefinition of the relationships between consumers and producers in the food systems.

The objective of the Task is to analyze and describe the mechanisms of technology transfer. Social innovation and management of food systems aimed at increasing environmental, social, and economic sustainability, including the training of personnel and possible reporting systems for the results are investigated. The Task activity involves the following phases: 

• Analysis of technological (e.g biofortification; microbial based solutions and techniques improving water and nutirients use efficiency), social (e.g. Bio-districts) and organizational (e.g. urban garden planning) innovations aimed at improving the sustainability of the food system;
   
• Analysis of the institutional and economic context within which the innovation is developed and adopted;
   
• Analysis of the Willingness to Accept (WTA) of firms and organizations of the food systems with respect to the adoption of appropriate and scalable technological, social and management innovations that go into the direction of increasing the sustainability of the system as a whole;
   
• Analysis of the strategies that enable the adoption of technological, social and management innovations through a sample of supply chains through the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). 

The expected results of the task development concern the following aspects:

• Report of technological, social and organizational innovations aimed at improving the sustainability of the food system;

• Analysis of the institutional and economic context within which the innovation is developed and adopted;

• Report on the WTA by organizations of the food systems with respect to institutional context and technological, social and management innovations;

• Report on private and public strategies (e.g. planning tools for the social and environmental upgrading of urban contexts, according to a 'participatory agro-urban planning approach)' that enable the adoption of technological, social and management innovations through a sample of supply chains representative of Local Agrifood Systems and Food Environments.