Fifth Annual Yale Food Systems Symposium: Resilience Across Scales - Request for Proposals

Date: 
Friday, September 29, 2017 - 9:00am to Saturday, September 30, 2017 - 5:00pm
Location: 
New Haven, CT

Fifth Annual Yale Food Systems Symposium
Resilience Across Scales

Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
September 29-30th, 2017
www.yalefoodsymposium.org

Request for Proposals

Invitation

Challenges facing food systems have long been referred to as “wicked,” because they resist simple, linear solutions. Stakeholders are diverse, with complex environmental, political, and social interconnections; solutions therefore necessitate information-sharing and community-building between actors working across disciplines. The Fifth Annual Yale Food Systems Symposium will bring together a mix of scholars and practitioners in panels, workshops, roundtables, and breakout sessions over two days to explore the complex dynamics of agri-food systems. This year’s theme “Resilience Across Scales” focuses on our capacity to absorb stress while maintaining integrity, which is crucial to the continued functioning of our food systems. We seek to engage questions of food production, consumption, urbanization, and climate change, and ability to adapt, reorganize, and evolve in the face of today’s challenges.

The symposium seeks to:
•         Create a platform for sharing cutting-edge research and applied learnings from the fields of food scholarship and practice
•         Serve as a venue for the creation of fruitful working relationships across disciplines
•         Create a welcoming space for all who are engaged in the work of supporting and improving food systems of all scales

Types of Programming

The symposium will consist of a diversity of proposed formats: speakers and panelists, presenting original research, as well as workshops, demonstrations, and roundtable discussion groups.

Submissions topic areas include, but are not limited to:
•         Nutrition, diet shifts, and sustainable diets
•         Food, ethics, and religion
•         Market-based solutions and private governance
•         Supply chain management, certification, and multi-stakeholder engagement
•         Food justice and food sovereignty movements
•         Food waste
•         Sustainable agriculture and land use
•         Plant biotechnology and cellular agriculture
•         Global geo-political structure and food security
•         Systems science, industrial ecology, and circular economy
•         Urbanization, land use change, and food systems planning
•         Food policy, farm bill, and government
•         Indigenous food sovereignty

We also welcome ideas that span across categories or do not correspond directly to those outlined.

The symposium draws over 250 students, educators, researchers, farmers, chefs, activists, and business professionals each year.

Submission Instructions

Deadline for submission is July 15th, 2017. Abstracts & Workshop Proposals should be 300 words and include a title and keywords. Please submit online using our submission form.  Accepted proposals will be notified on a rolling basis.

Please refer to the conference website, yalefoodsymposium.org, for more information. Questions about proposals, workshops, submission, or registration may also be directed to yfss@yale.edu.