SCAF Annual Event 2026 - Topic suggestions for the Unconference on 27th August by

Guidelines to suggest and vote for a topic

scaf2 — 2026-05-28 11:08:31 UTC

The SCAF Unconference will take place on 27th August, 9 - 1 pm, including lunch. At an unconference, the agenda and topics for discussion are created collaboratively by you and the other attendees. Everyone is welcome to suggest a topic and/or facilitate a session. There will be 3 time slots of varying lengths (up to one hour) split across up to 5 spaces. Please note that most spaces will not be set up for slide presentations, so sessions should be designed to work without them where possible.

To suggest a session: Please include a title, short description, name of the presenter/facilitator, session length and format.

To express your interest in an already suggested session, please use the heart button on the bottom left of each post

Workshop: Capturing food system impacts on people through participatory arts engagement

scaf2 — 2026-07-24 16:00:18 UTC

Synopsis: The workshop will demonstrate a participatory creative arts approach that was used as part of a larger programme of research to investigate food access and health inequalities in underserved areas of Glasgow. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the methodological approach and will be invited to participate.

Aims:

This first phase of qualitative research aims to explore and understand the factors that affect access to and choice of nutritious foods (e.g. fruit and vegetables, oily fish, and fibre-rich foods) specific or unique to a community. This foundational understanding aims to enable trusted and embedded co-design, leading to implementation and evaluation of a place-based, community-led food market as a driver for diet and behaviour change.

Methodology:

Design-based, participatory arts methodologies are an emergent approach within public health research and offer a valuable means of generating rich, intersectional insights into complex social systems, including food insecurity in areas of multiple deprivation.

This study adopts a design-led, low-barrier engagement approach that invites community members to share food-related stories through visual narrative mapping around a shared table, enabling the collection of nuanced qualitative data grounded in lived experience.

Developed through co-design with each community, this approach responds to local, situational dynamics and supports the analysis of tensions and intersections within complex food systems.

The methodology is used to visualise individual and collective food experiences, histories and barriers to food access in a way that avoids potentially intrusive or distressing questioning.

Facilitator: Lydia Stewart

Duration: 1 hour

Format: Workshop

session/walk on foraging

2026-07-29 15:50:58 UTC

discussion on foraging and a walk to look for edible plants on and around campus

CANCELLED - Community‑Led Food Systems

natalie784 — 2026-07-30 16:23:31 UTC

Community‑Led Food Systems -

A space to explore how community food provisions & local food systems can move beyond supermarket surplus and towards dignified, community‑rooted access. We’ll look at the realities facing small growers and producers — isolation, low income, limited funding routes — and ask what is possible when communities, growers and organisations work together rather than in parallel.

A grounded, collaborative session about building food futures that support both community wellbeing and rural livelihoods. Facilitator: The Haven/Foodlink NE- Natalie Jurdeczka. Format: Group session - structured co-creation of a 'Recipe' build. 60 minutes

Developing New Food Products

scaf2 — 2026-08-18 15:06:58 UTC

Alistair Trail, Principal Food and Enterprise Consultant at SAC Consulting/SRUC will give an overview of our New Product Development Service where we collaborate with SME's and entrepreneurs to develop innovative food prototypes for the UK market. He will also give an Overview of ONE SeedPod, the New Food Innovation Hub based in Aberdeen and how SeedPod support's businesses to commercialise novel food products and bring these products to market.

Alistair will be joined by Tim Yeoman from the Nourished Plate who is in the process of developing an innovative healthy Seed Butter product for the Scottish Market. Tim will discuss his development journey, the support he has received and some of the ongoing challenges Entrepreneurs face when bringing new products to market.

Presenter: Alistair Trail

Duration: 45 minutes

Format: Talk and Q&A

Workshop proposal: Edible Cities: Reimagining Urban Spaces for Food, Community and Climate Resilience

2026-08-18 15:39:33 UTC

As cities face increasing challenges related to climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity and public health, there is growing interest in how urban spaces can be transformed into productive, edible landscapes. The concept of Edible Cities promotes the integration of food growing into parks, streets, schools, housing developments and community spaces, creating environments that are not only greener but also healthier, more resilient and socially connected.

This interactive workshop will explore how local authorities, community organisations, researchers and residents can work together to embed food growing within urban planning and place-making. Drawing on examples from Scotland and beyond, participants will examine the environmental, social and economic benefits of edible landscapes, including improved biodiversity, access to fresh food, climate adaptation, community cohesion and opportunities for learning and engagement.

Through facilitated discussion and practical exercises, attendees will identify barriers and opportunities for implementing edible city initiatives in their own communities and develop ideas for collaborative action. The session will encourage cross-sector dialogue and knowledge exchange, supporting the conference theme of catalysing collaboration for a better food future.

Beyond Reformulation: Who Needs to Be at the Table to Create Food People Want to Eat?

2026-08-19 11:06:41 UTC

Food reformulation is often presented as a technical challenge: reducing salt, sugar, fat or calories, or increasing fibre and other beneficial nutrients. However, healthier reformulation does not automatically translate into consumer acceptance, sustained consumption, or public health impact.

Aim: Drawing on lessons from my PhD research, this session will explore how interdisciplinary and multisector collaboration can bridge gaps among scientific evidence, product development, consumer needs, and policy implementation. Participants will consider who should be involved, whose voices are often missing, and how researchers can move beyond studying acceptability towards co-designing healthier, acceptable and practical food products.

Facilitator: Dr Aishat Momodu
Duration: 1 hour
Format: Interactive co-design workshop
Method: Facilitated roundtable discussion

Workshop proposal: What counts as food literacy? Designing the future of food education in Scotland 2040.

2026-08-19 11:37:17 UTC

An interdisciplinary mapping and futures concept exercise.

Aims: to explore different understandings of food literacy and collectively identify priorities for future food education in Scotland.

In this session we will

· Collaboratively map ‘food literacy’

· Consider what aspect we pay most attention to today, what’s missing, neglected or underdeveloped.

· Design food education for 2040

From this session we could generate a visual map or manifesto or top recommendations, suggestions for an output welcome in comments below.

Food Sovereignty in a Multicultural Scotland: Does the Market Cater for Everyone Who Actually Lives Here?

2026-08-21 11:15:51 UTC

Food sovereignty is about more than access to calories; it is the right of communities to define their own food systems and eat food that is culturally meaningful to them, not just nutritionally adequate. Scotland's population is increasingly diverse, yet the mainstream food market, including major supermarkets, meal deals, and public food provision, is still largely built around a narrow, "default" British diet.

This session asks a pointed question: as Scotland positions itself as a Good Food Nation, is it actually building a food system that represents all the communities who live here?

Session Aim

To surface where Scotland's food market and food-support system fail to reflect its multicultural population, specifically around availability and cost of culturally significant food and to start identifying what genuine food sovereignty, not just food security, would require. This session aims to move the conversation from "does everyone have enough to eat" to "does everyone have the right to eat food that reflects who they are.

Objectives

Identify the gap between Scotland's Good Food Nation ambitions and the lived reality that many ethnic minority communities shop differently, pay a premium for culturally important food, and are underserved by mainstream retail and food-aid provision alike.
Interrogate the food-poverty response itself: do food banks, community pantries, and cash-first schemes actually stock or fund culturally appropriate food, or do they default to a narrow, non-representative basket?
Reframe the conversation from food security to food sovereignty, moving beyond "do people have enough to eat" toward "do people have the right to eat food that reflects who they are," which is a distinct and often overlooked dimension of the right to food.
Generate practical, Scotland-specific ideas participants can carry forward, such as what retailers, community food projects, or policymakers could realistically change around stocking, pricing, or funding culturally diverse food.

Methodology

This session will run as a single facilitated round table discussion where participants will stay in one conversation throughout. Participants will be speaking from lived or professional experience of navigating food access across cultures.

Measuring the unmeasurable? What makes a Scottish food system resilient

2026-08-25 02:29:56 UTC

"Resilience" is everywhere in food policy right now, but ask ten people what it means and you'll get ten answers, especially in rural and island Scotland, where the usual ways of measuring it don't quite fit. This is a hands-on, no-slides workshop where we work it out together. In small mixed groups we'll map what actually makes a community food system resilient, then wrestle with the hard part: which of those things can you measure, and what gets lost when you try? Come with your own angle, whether you're in research, policy, farming, community work, or just care about how Scotland feeds itself. You'll leave having thought about food resilience in a way you probably haven't before, and you'll have shaped an early-stage doctoral project on exactly this question.

Facilitator: Eneyi Oshi, Doctoral researcher, University of Edinburgh

Length: 50 minutes (flexible)

Format: Facilitated workshop, small-group activity and discussion. No slides, just cards, a wall, and everyone's thinking.

Out of the box: Unpacking terminologies used in the context of plant-forward transitions

2026-08-25 18:14:05 UTC

This is an informal discussion/workshop exploring how we talk about food and the diets we choose. We will look at the terms we usually use (e.g. vegan, vegetarian, plant-forward, plant-based alternative) and discuss whether putting people into rigid boxes helps or hinders our relationship with food. Food is so much more than just certain nutrients!

No technical background is needed: the more diverse our perspectives, the richer our conversation will be.

Aim: To reflect on dietary labels and terminologies, and rethink how we communicate about plant-forward eating.

Methodology: An open, guided group conversation driven by interactive prompt questions.

Facilitator: Dr. Sarah Nájera Espinosa (Research fellow, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)

Duration: 1 hour (or shorter if we finish discussing before)

Format: informal discussion/workshop