The Public Health Agency - An example of where our scientific work makes a difference
The systems thinking attracted interest
The background to the Public Health Agency’s partnership lies in its ambition to develop work related to food. This initiative was partly based on a government mandate, which resulted in a memorandum proposing ways to further develop the work from a systems perspective. Among other things, it drew on a representation of the food system created by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), using it as a starting point to explore approaches to food consumption. The aim was to integrate various sustainability aspects into the work, and since food has a significant impact on many sustainability goals, adopting a systems approach was essential.
When Mistra Food Futures began its work, and it turned out that the programme had these systems thinking, it was quite natural for us as a government agency to participate as an active partner.
Highlighting the consumer perspective has been the most important thing for us in the partnership. For decades, everything has been about production. The consumption perspective has been completely lost, despite the fact that food is about nutrition and health for us consumers.
– Highlighting the consumer perspective has been the most important thing for us in the partnership. For decades, everything has been about production. The consumption perspective has been completely lost, despite the fact that food is about nutrition and health for us consumers.
The government assignment, which has largely guided our partnership, was to develop proposals for goals and action areas for sustainable and healthy food consumption, to come up with proposals for indicators for follow-up etc. Mistra Food Futures has really been able to deliver on this, as one of the research projects worked on developing indicators for assessing the sustainability of food systems in order to evaluate, remedy and monitor results over time. In particular the image – Sustainable House – illustrating the food system has been very helpful in understanding what is included in the system as a whole.
– This collaboration has really shown us how important it is that we as an authority are involved in highlighting the public health perspective. We have received both knowledge and support in different ways by participating in various dialogues, in individual conversations with researchers and by taking part in several of the reports that have been published. The collaboration has also resulted in Helena Hansson, programme manager for Mistra Food Futures, now being part of our reference group linked to ongoing government assignments, which is very valuable to us. An effective partnership means exchange, and this has certainly been the case.
Being able to take part in researchers’ work, to discuss and break perspectives with other actors along the entire food chain has been so valuable. It has been good and interesting for us to take home a number of facts, but also to constantly sharpen our thinking and see what we can contribute to Mistra Food Future’s work.
If we can't deliver food to keep people healthy, then we have a failed system.
As far as the future is concerned, our perspective is mainly to continue working on the consumption perspective from a systems perspective. We know that the current system leads to major ill-health, has a major climate impact, a major impact on biodiversity, water use and so on. If we can’t deliver food to keep people healthy, then we have a failed system. We need to solve this together.
– The systems approach in the programme is a strength and that is what makes it so exciting. Systems thinking opens up a different type of dialogue than traditional research does. In the end, it also results in a different type of knowledge and delivery that decision-makers can benefit from, Pia Lindeskog concludes. .