Open space conference for public engagement (INPROFOOD)

Engaging stakeholders with different methods, and identifying what it is that civil society wants when it comes to food and health related research, are the main aims of the EU-funded INPROFOOD project. In this context, the INPROFOOD consortium organised a European Open Space Conference with the title “How can we shape the future of research in food and health?”. The event took place in November 2013 in Brussels, Belgium, and attracted around 70 participants from 18 countries, representing a range of different stakeholder groups.

EUFIC, a partner in the project, carried out interviews with Ludger Benighaus, the INPROFOOD partner responsible for organising the European Open Space Conference, and with Klaus Hadwiger, the coordinator of INPROFOOD. The podcast firstly explains what the Open Space methodology is, to then describe how the method contributes to the aims of the INPROFOOD project. The recording finishes with the impressions from a number of participants, who shared their views on the methodology, and what they find important topics for future research on food and health.

Ludger Benighaus

Ludger Benighaus from DIALOGIK, Stuttgart, Germany, works as communication specialist and manager of projects related to food, health and energy. He also teaches demographic change, empirical research, and methods of public involvement at the Universities of Stuttgart and Lüneburg. Within the INPROFOOD project, his main responsibility was organising the Open Space Conference.

Klaus Hadwiger

Klaus Hadwiger is the coordinator of INPROFOOD. He is a sociologist and has been working in several scientific projects at the University of Stuttgart, as well as at the University of Hohenheim, germany. In the last 6 years, Klaus Hadwiger has been active in managing European collaborative projects in the food sector including the large scale FP6 project PathogenCombat. He is active member of a number of European associations, e.g. the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST).