Paper long abstract:

Over the past ten years, food has become one of the topics of greatest interest to public health. The rise of phenomena such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes have placed at the center of governments' attention the need to consider appropriate forms of promotion of health and safety in daily life.

In order to improve a mutual learning between industry, researchers and civil society in the earliest stages of research processes directed towards developing innovative approaches (technical and social), a group of 18 partner of 13 European countries have developed the three years "Inprofood" project funded by the European Union. Within the project three series of European Scenario Workshops (EASW) with different types of stakeholders has been carried out in 2012 and 2013.

The EASW is a method of participation that combine different relevant stakeholder groups which might be strongly affected by health related food safety issues and/or which could add valuable new perspectives, but which have not been sufficiently integrated into participatory discussions on food and health. One main question that this research needs to tackle is the role that innovations in foods and new research technologies could play in counter-acting the alarming rise of food-related health problems. The second one regards the efficacy of such participative methods in the field of innovation.