The Food Socioscope

Analysing societal transition

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Documented Initiatives
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Countries
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Global Interviewers
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Languages

Transition in the food system

Through large scale data collection around the world and LLM-driven research, the Socioscope analyses how behaviours, norms, and practices evolve within sustainable food transitions. We're building a systemic way to help make complex social patterns measurable, comparable, and understandable. > We study initiatives worldwide that make the food system mor sustainable. Using AI, the Socioscope analyses, over hundreds oof cases in dozens of countries, how business models and behaviours can change towards a more sustainable system.

Data

Sophisticated on-the-ground data collection across 35+ countries, capturing not just what initiatives do, but how they transform economic, ecological, cultural and governance ecosystems. Our well-trained local interviewers and field mangagers conduct ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured qualitative interviews, and participatory observation to build the most comprehensive data set of food system transformations.

Our local interviewers visit initiatives and collect data on how they address the challenges they face: how they organise, how they interact with their environmnt and other stakeholders. With films, we present these initiatives and help them to share good practices and meet like-minded people. The Socioscope is the world's larger qualitative dataset of its kind.

Technology

Establishing an LLM-driven research methodology that can process qualitative data at large scale while preserving contextual nuance and cultural specificity. Our suite of classic and LLM-driven technology tools helps researchers analyze data across hundreds of cases in a valid and reliable way.

Our suite of classic and LLM-driven technology tools helps researchers process data across hundreds of cases in a valid and reliable way.

Analysis

Unpacking how stakeholders work together, the motivations and values that incentivize them, and key challenges; a layered approach to mapping how food systems transition. Developing new frameworks and pathways to understand food systems transformation across sectors and contexts examining economic, political and cultural dimensions.

The Socioscope develops Large Scale Qualitative Analysis, a new research methodology that can process qualitative data at large scale while preserving contextual nuance and cultural specificity. Our team of scientists analyses the processes of change, the strategies that are implemented, the solutions that work. We compare across geographies and make models to help stakeholders.

Map of case studies

Leading the Research

The Socioscope Research Project is supported by the Nomis Foundation