The Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR) convened its 6th SCAR Foresight Recommendation Workshop in, bringing together around 45 representatives from SCAR Working Groups, the SCAR Steering Group, the European Commission and foresight experts. Entitled “Shaping the future”, the workshop was designed to review the emerging findings of the 6th SCAR Foresight exercise and, importantly, translate its scientific conclusions into recommendations for European and national research and innovation (R&I) policy.
The workshop came at an important moment. SCAR undertakes a major foresight exercise every three to five years, and the sixth exercise builds on the previous foresight while responding to a substantially changed environment. COVID-19, geopolitical conflicts, climate change, biodiversity loss, volatile markets and other overlapping disruptions have exposed vulnerabilities in European agrifood systems. The new report therefore asks how European agrifood systems can remain resilient and adaptive in conditions where disruption may increasingly be the norm rather than the exception.
From three transition pathways to an interconnected agrifood system
A central message of the 6th Foresight is that circularity, diversity, and healthy and sustainable diets cannot be addressed as separate transition pathways. They are interconnected components of the same agrifood system and must be considered within the fundamental biophysical constraints imposed by the land–water nexus. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries are consequently viewed not only as production sectors but also as strategic stabilisers of European society and stewards of land, water and biological resources.
This represents both continuity and evolution from the 5th SCAR Foresight, which identified three major pathways towards a “safe and just operating space”: healthy and sustainable diets for all, circular zero-waste food systems, and greater diversity. The earlier foresight already stressed that these pathways needed to be considered together in order to identify synergies, trade-offs, barriers and gamechangers and to break down disciplinary and policy silos. The sixth exercise takes this systems perspective further by examining how these priorities perform when confronted with a much more volatile global environment.
Stress-testing the future through “gamechangers”
One distinctive feature of the new foresight is its use of scenarios and gamechangers. Rather than attempting to predict what Europe’s food system will look like in 2050, the exercise explores alternative futures and tests how agrifood systems might respond to major disruptions. The methodology combines scenario building, gamechanger stress-testing, literature review and SWOT analysis across the three focus areas and the land–water nexus.
This approach reflects a broader understanding of foresight itself. SCAR foresight is not intended to predict the future; its purpose is to explore different possible futures so that research systems and policymakers are better prepared for emerging risks, opportunities and unexpected events. The 6th Foresight consequently argues for a shift from short-term reaction to long-term preparedness; from separate pathways to interacting system functions; from silo optimisation to system resilience; from isolated outputs to system-level impacts; and from fragmented governance to coordinated operational capability.
Turning foresight into recommendations
The Brussels workshop focused specifically on converting these insights into actionable recommendations. Following introductory remarks by **Elke Saggau**, Chair of the SCAR Foresight Group, and **Giulia Bizzo** from the SCAR Secretariat, foresight expert **Kerstin Cuhls** presented the principal results and scientific recommendations of the sixth exercise. **Gianluca Brunori** then reflected on recommendations from previous SCAR foresights and what has changed in the context of recent crises, while **Stefano Grando** introduced initial ideas for SCAR recommendations. A tour de table moderated by **Olivier Mora** invited SCAR Working Group chairs to formulate three to four policy-level recommendations from the perspective of their respective sectors.
The afternoon discussion moved from diagnosis to action. Participants were asked to identify the most important trends, signals and challenges emerging from the Foresight; consider the short- and long-term steps required at European Commission and national levels; identify research needs across circularity, diversity and healthy diets in the face of land, energy and water constraints; and consider how research can raise awareness of the urgency of food-system transformation. The discussion also addressed what needs to change or be strengthened in policies, organisations and ministries to improve the resilience of European agrifood systems.
Implications for future research and innovation
The draft Foresight report points towards a broader conception of R&I performance. Research should not be judged solely by individual technologies, projects or sectoral outputs, but also by whether it contributes to resilience, ecosystem health, resource efficiency, nutrition, economic viability and long-term public value across the whole system. This calls for stronger interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, closer collaboration between actors and territories, and better connections between technological and social innovation.
Among the directions identified are stronger integrated governance across policy domains; collaboration at local, regional and EU levels; greater preparedness for future disruption; long-term financing for system adaptation; living labs and regional pilots; improved indicators and “true pricing” approaches that reveal environmental and health impacts; and better use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. The report also stresses that food security cannot be reduced to the availability of calories: healthy diets, healthy soils, food literacy and sustainable resource use must remain integral to future R&I strategies.
From European foresight to international research collaboration
An important implication extends beyond Europe. Agrifood systems are globally interconnected through research, trade, genetic resources, knowledge, markets and environmental impacts. The earlier SCAR Foresight already warned that sustainability improvements within Europe should not simply export environmental or social costs elsewhere and emphasised the importance of intercontinental and cross-policy cooperation. The sixth exercise reinforces this international dimension by explicitly recommending learning from other countries rather than “re-inventing wheels” and by highlighting collaboration as essential to building resilience.
For international agricultural research partnerships, this suggests moving beyond isolated projects towards long-term knowledge exchange, joint foresight, shared experimentation and research networks capable of responding rapidly to shocks. It also creates a strong rationale for connecting European R&I more systematically with research and innovation actors in Africa, Asia, the Near East and North Africa, and Latin America, particularly where countries face common challenges around climate resilience, biodiversity, diets, water, digitalisation and the inclusion of farmers and other food-system actors.
The Brussels meeting therefore represented more than the final stages of another foresight report. It was an effort to translate possible futures into choices about how research should be organised today. The emerging message of the 6th SCAR Foresight is that preparedness requires the capacity to connect the dots: between circularity and diversity, diets and natural resources, science and society, short-term crises and long-term transformation, and European research priorities and the wider global agrifood system.
See the SCAR-ARCH presentation here (in case the below PPT cannot be viewed in your browser.
