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Action-learning: developing competences to drive the transition towards more sustainable food systems

Background: Establishing a learning environment that develops and fosters students’ competences is essential to drive the transition to more sustainable agrifood systems. FoodFactory-4-Us — an international online student competition — is applying action-learning approaches to educational activities facilitating the development of the core competences of observation, participation, dialogue, visionary thinking, and reflection. These core competences are regarded as essential for the next generation of agrifood professionals to drive the transition to more sustainable agrifood systems. Methods: The competition is organized in a cyclical manner based on planning, implementation and reflection in which action-research is conducted on students’ self-assessment of their competences, experiences and contributions once in the beginning, once during and at the end of the competition through online surveys and written reflection documents. The rich qualitative data from action-research provides valuable insights into the learning process for facilitators shaping the development of the educational activities on a continuous basis. Results: The action-research qualitative data shows that students improve their competences in building and maintaining networks; collaboration; and problem-solving through participation in the competition. Furthermore, the data shows that students’ values and attitudes, such as creativity, passion, proactivity, analytical and critical thinking, reflection, open-mindedness, visionary thinking, and self-management, contribute the most to the learning community. Conclusions: Such findings give notion to the importance of cultivating a learning environment in which a multitude of values and attitudes are given room and space to flourish thereby shaping the current and future agrifood system.