the 10 E’s of Rome’s effective multi-stakeholder Living Lab

At the EASST-4s Conference Parallel session held as part of FUSILLI’s Feeding Cities Conference, Rome presented the scheme they used to implement the innovative actions and policies that the FUSILLI project had foreseen for the project duration. The Rome FUSILLI Living Lab experience, characterized by its disruptive, inductive, and hands-on daily approach, has successfully implemented their ‘10 E’s’ model – proven effective in driving sustainable change within the city’s complex food system.

In the 43 months of FUSILLI Policies and Actions (P&A),so far, many governance acts were approved in Rome, all good and – hopefully – for good. For e.g. a Rome Food Policy guidelines approved (Apr 2021), and afterwards partially already implemented: a City Food Bureau appointed (May 2023), a Call for Allocation of Public Land to Young farmers issued (October 2023); a Food City Council of 156 members appointed as consultant body within the City Assembly (October 2024); First policy proposals delivered from the Food Council to the City Assembly (July 2024).

These effective and beautiful results came not from a top-down but from a challenging, collective, bottom-up process, a democratic and inclusive one, managed by the FUSILLI team (everyday learning from our mistakes!), witnessing its adherence to the needs of the city.

The FUSILLI Rome team’s way of thinking out of the box tested a framework we, at EASST, dare to suggest should be applied to any kind of Innovative Living Lab multi-stakeholder* process, not only for a food system transformation process, but facing any topic, and suitable probably for any city.

*Please note that we intend the term “stakeholders” as comprehensive rightsholders too, and meant for any kind of institutions (politicians and p.o.), including researchers.

At month 1 of FUSILLI (Jan 2021), Rome started with:

A good general habit in purchasing and eating fresh, seasonal and local food, and a fairly good food awareness (all comparing with other Italian and EU cities)
A beautiful, lively, citizenship, active in farming, urban gardening, waste recycling, fighting food poverty, but only partially recognized by the local administration. For decades. And this is bad.
The – ugly – shortage of public and private resources both in terms of competences and funds
A “traditional” total absence of private-public coordination and management. And this was very bad.
The ugly lack of mutual faith between active organizations and institutions /officers

The process we actually implemented is quite simple to describe, and easy and handy enough to be applied in any complex system involving people, such as the food system.

The essential and indispensable enzyme to activate the plant and make it grow healthy, we learnt on the field: it is a tenacious, constant, tireless and transparent COMMUNICATION (dense in content, of course…!). We did it: in person; through a dedicated Italian FUSILLI project Facebook page opened at month 13 and fed daily; through a weekly newsletter issued from month 22.

The ‘E’s’ for our Living Lab are presented in a mostly chronological order, though they are not sequential diachronic ‘steps’ but rather synchronic simultaneous and most importantly – formed and repeated habits!

Below you can find our inductive, ex post scheme.
The definitions in italics are quoted from Oxford Dictionary.

The 10 E’s of Rome’s effective
multi-stakeholder Living Lab

1. ENQUIRE

:In British English people sometimes distinguish between enquire and inquire, using enquire for the general meaning of ‘ask for information’ and inquire for the more particular meaning of ‘officially investigate’. In American English inquire is usually used in both meanings.

In the first 6 month of FUSILLI we did both: enquire and inquire, to map the stakeholders’ (Municipality included) territory and needs.

This required hard study, many physical and virtual visits, thousands of telephone calls and emails, daily use of social networks (primarily linkedin and facebook), awkward (-winning!) popping-up uninvited at conferences

This way, we built a list of more than 400 stakeholders by month 12. At month 14, we got a LL of 250 stakeholders working. Now, we have an established City Food Council of 156.

3. EMBRACE (and EMPATHIZE

:the act of accepting an idea, a proposal, a set of beliefs, etc, especially when it is done with enthusiasm / to understand another person’s feelings and experiences, especially because you have been in a similar situation

We did both: it was not a big effort, due to the value of stakeholders’ activities and policies, and it paid back a lot in terms of FUSILLI’s accountability and mutual trust.

Again, our weekly newsletter – and its friendly writing style, performed as a great tool, very appreciated.

5. ENVISION

:to imagine what a situation will be like in the future, especially a situation you intend to work towards

We promoted FUSILLI’s vision in many private and public, not always “dedicated”, meetings, especially during the first 18 months of the project.

We encouraged stakeholders’ participation in academic and practical webinars and conferences, to broaden their vision, and make it shared with our team’s.

7. EMPOWER (and ENTITLE)

:to give somebody the power or authority to do something – to give somebody more control over their own life or the situation they are in

The creation of a “Rome food policy LOGO” issued by the Municipality at month 12 was a milestone in this process.

The constant presence of the Municipality at LL’s activities reinforced the trust of citizens in the feasibility of the project, while giving the Local City government the visibility and accountability it starved for.

9. EMBED

:to fix something in a substance or solid object – but (surprisingly!) also to send a journalist, photographer, etc. to an area where there is fighting, so that they can travel with the army and report what is happening.

Many of our stakeholders (Municipality included) were encouraged to act like part of the FUSILLI team: writing articles for FUSILLI website’s newsletter/blog, visiting and reporting on conferences, sharing their research and best practice through meetings and our newsletter.

2. ENLIGHTEN

:to give somebody information so that they understand something better

We started at month 1, in three ways: never (1) getting annoyed of telling about FUSILLI project; nor (2) bored in listening to stakeholders’ work and needs; while (3) always reporting to the community of stakeholders what we (just) learnt about some other stakeholder’s job.

We are still doing that now, but seldom for the first part: in fact, we no longer need to introduce FUSILLI anymore, since in Rome it is quite famous nowadays…

As for (2) and (3) our weekly newsletter is a great tool, very appreciated.

4. ENDORSE

:to say publicly that you support a person, statement or course of action. But also: to say in an advertisement that you use and like a particular product so that other people will want to buy it

We started from month 1 with all stakeholders’ good ideas and practices, and are still doing, standing still against the general habit of distrust that is typical in Rome, believing that nothing is less precious than silence, when walking together along a process’ path.

We forced the FUSILLI team active participation in stakeholders’ activities.

Again, our weekly newsletter is a great tool, benefiting from the inputs of stakeholders’ activities.

6. ENABLE

:to make it possible for somebody/something to do something – to make it possible for something to happen or exist by creating the necessary conditions

The first condition to involve stakeholders – and keep them committed – was to gain very soon (at month 11) the endorsement of the Municipality (the Environment Councillor), pushing for a visible commitment from it, also in terms of availability of the venues, and sometimes funds.

8. EXPERIMENT

:to try or test new ideas, methods, etc. to find out what effect they have

The innovation P&A events on the territory that we organized and co-organized have been more than 200, in 43 months.

The meetings and debates before and after those were many more. The newsletter and social media communication about those, continuous.

10. ESTABLISH

:to start or create an organization, a system, etc. that is meant to last for a long time / (to establish something) to start having a relationship, especially a formal one, with another person, group or country

In the City Food Bureau are at present 3 very skilled officers. Will the number be increased? Will this office gain the role and power of an Interdepartmental one?

Will the Call for Allocation of Public Land to Young farmers be successful? It is meant to be a permanent one, with new available lands added gradually after the technical and urban planning due diligence, but the dedicated p.o. are few, and the work is huge.

Thanks to the Living Lab worktables’ work of months, the Rome Food Council (FC) was established – after a public call issued by the City Assembly – on October 27th 2023. The 156 members – plus one president – are stakeholders from the governance (Administration), and from production, distribution, consumer, and waste. The FC lasts 3 years, then there should be a new call. Will the next Local Government issue it and keep on having this multistakeholder consultancy body on food issues? And, above all, will the present one actually LISTEN to the FC’s proposals and implement them?

We believe the positive “Living Lab mood” (decanted/translated into a voluntary, not funded FC) is going to stay and last – here like in any city – only if it is going to achieve quick, frequent and permanent results from a trustworthy and reliable environment, shaped by accountability and transparency.

Blog: A Copernican revolution – the 10 E’s of Rome’s effective multi-stakeholder Living Lab