Territorialising knowledge-policy interfaces: Lessons from urban food governance spaces

Abstract

There has been increased academic attention on enhancing the effectiveness of knowledge-policy interfaces at the international level for urgent food systems transformation. However, previous literature signals that actions to improve science, policy, and society relations occur at multiple scales and often through informal avenues. This paper examines the potential role of multi-actor urban food governance spaces in developing more inclusive and territorialised knowledge-policy interfaces; a subject rarely investigated in the literature. To do so, the study proposes a three-dimensional analytical framework that acknowledges their place-based and networked nature. This framework is applied in València and Barcelona, focusing on the knowledge practices within multi-actor urban food governance spaces and their interrelations with the politics of evidence-informed policymaking. The results illustrate that such spaces function as a form of informal knowledge-policy interfaces that promote local and multi-scalar collective learning and knowledge co-production. However, whether knowledge from such spaces becomes a key part of policymaking grapples with issues of limited administrative capacities, scarce data, and lack of political prioritisation of food in the municipal agenda. As such, there is a need for increased efforts to link global, national, and local processes to build on existing infrastructures at different scales, such as by developing translocal knowledge-policy interfaces. This study not only contributes to progress in the field of food. It also offers insights to enhance science-policy-society relations more broadly, illustrating the need to acknowledge the effectiveness of knowledge-policy interfaces as a function of the broader actings of contested place-based and governance dynamics.