About this Research Topic

Background

The United Nations consider evidence-based decision-making essential to meeting the goal of ending hunger and ensuring access by all people to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food. Decision-makers often need to know what information already exists together with its quality and applicability. Evidence syntheses use a variety of methods to bring together relevant information on a question or topic to inform decisions. Evidence-based decision-making has proven to be a powerful tool in medical fields but the use of evidence synthesis to support safe and ethical production and consumption of food can be disparate and not well coordinated. Despite this, evidence syntheses are increasingly being used as part of systems to support agriculture, food, and related decision-making, and range from syntheses in natural and agricultural sciences to syntheses supporting socio-economic decision-making.
This collection aims to bring together authors working on evidence syntheses that support sustainable food systems. We anticipate that this collection will highlight the value of high quality evidence syntheses to decision-makers, such as farmers, members of the food industry, food retailers, policy makers, and funders. We also expect to identify some of the issues that are key to producers and users of evidence, and showcase research that aims to improve its availability, and applicability for decision-makers. The collection will showcase high quality research, utilising evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews, systematic maps and meta-analyses, new innovations in the creation and use of evidence syntheses, and also help inform further activities to build capacity, efficiency and effectiveness of evidence syntheses to inform safe and sustainable food systems. The collection may also highlight trade-offs and synergies between research evidence and other considerations such as socio-economic and political factors, and may consider discussions around different aspects of and types of ‘evidence’ and ethical issues related to their use. Our long-term aim is to have a collaborative, multidisciplinary, and rigorous approach to enhance the production and use of ethical and equitable evidence synthesis methods to underpin safe, sustainable and ethical food production.
We welcome papers utilising evidence syntheses and related methods to inform decision making. We also invite discussion papers highlighting: the need for, or potential methods of evidence capacity building and global networking; the use of innovations such as machine learning, or artificial intelligence to enhance evidence syntheses; and ethical issues relating to evidence syntheses and their application. We also welcome submissions from authors working on the application of evidence syntheses within food systems, or those working in fields where evidence syntheses are used alongside other tools to support decision-making. Topics covered may include any part of sustainable food systems as covered by the scope of the journal (e.g. agriculture/food production, agroecology, food processing, diets and nutrition, waste) but must relate to evidence/knowledge synthesis research, development, or discussions. Submissions might include:
• Novel evidence syntheses in the field of sustainable food systems
• Discussion/opinion papers around evidence synthesis use and capacity building
• Novel methods for the use/development of evidence syntheses and improvements to their efficiency, effectiveness, or use.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Evidence Synthesis, Agri-Food, Systematic Review, Machine Learning, Sustainable Food Systems

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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