Coordinator: Sabato D'Auria
Institute of Food Science (ISA)

Future4Food continues with the online survey active at F4F.CNR.IT, which continues to gather ideas, wishes and guidelines on the future of food until October 31, and the second meeting at EXPO 2015 on July 17 specifically focusing aspects of science and technology foresight. Foresight indicates a variety of programmes, exercises, studies and techniques for looking at the future; ICT tools are now being developed to enable performance of forward-looking analysis to outline scientific futures and "reliable" scenarios of science and technology development. Foresight studies examine important public policy issues where science and technology might be part of the solution, and scientific topics where potential applications and technologies are yet to be realised. The crucial role played by the CNR as a scientific consultant and event organizer for EXPO 2015, is considered by ISA-CNR, ITC-CNR, IEIIT-CNR and UREI-CNR a unique opportunity to organize a CNR event ”Future for Food and Food for Future” (F4F)², to investigate the food issues related to safety, and also to health, environment, energy, transportation, ICT. 

The event is structured in two meetings, the first of which was held at the CNR - Research Area 1 of Milan and the second will be held at Expo 2015, Piazza Irpinia, and an online survey.

The meetings are seminars, addressed to an audience composed of experts and ordinary citizens, aimed at presenting and discussing some of the possible evolution of topics about the food chain from the laboratory to the field, and finally to the person with particular reference to the aspects of Food Safety, Foodomics, Food Regulation and ICT for Food. The invited speakers have complementary experiences and will face different issues in an interdisciplinary way. The presentations and discussions are qualitative and exploratory. The speeches provide information on elements of one or more future scenarios, the forces that can support implementation and the obstacles (social, political, economic, technological, cultural, etc.) that, on the contrary, could prevent its realization.

The online survey, accessible by smartphone as well, is aimed at collecting information for outlining future scenarios expected in the next 20-30 years. The survey has been conceived and organized with the cooperation of experts of the European Commission. Experts and common citizens are invited to contribute to the survey on the base of their scientific and technological experiences and on what they wish, imagine and expect. The survey is conducted through a questionnaire prepared consistently with the topics of CNRxEXPO (food and human beings, food and production, and food and processing technologies), and it is aimed at the collection of trends and directions that could affect the future of food. The questionnaire is divided into a general section, which invites you to describe a future scenario and tag it; and a specific section, which requires a more detailed contribution. All questions are optional and most of them ask for a specific answer, yet many of them give the opportunity to express your views in your own words. All the contributions will be collected in a database and, when the survey is finished, thanks to ICT tools, these data will be analysed, classified, and their relationships investigated, finally they will be organized into high-level themes, they will be interpreted, and scenarios will be planned based on them.