16 October 2024
Building the ‘Comunidad SABE’, a research community from the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation
During the autumn of 2023, the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation approached us with a new challenge: to conceptualize and launch a community of researchers to help the transition towards a sustainable food system. It was the next step after its Daniel Carasso Fellowship program, the biannual grant that supports young postdocs conducting research on this very topic.
Faced with this challenge, we quickly got to work. We began by benchmarking other national and international interdisciplinary communities in various fields, from research to art. This allowed us to understand how each of them was structured and identify the strategy that best suited the needs of our future community.
We completed the analysis by interviewing 15 key stakeholders involved in the food chain: researchers, experts in food and environmental policy, communicators on food transition, civil activists, industry representatives and members of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge from the Spanish Government. We wanted to know, from different perspectives, how this community could help transform the food system through scientific research. The knowledge we obtained during this phase of the project allowed us to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the field, from which to define the mission, vision and action frame of the community.
Now we already had a clear understanding of the community’s direction, our next step was to bring it to life. In order to do so, we established the 2024-25 action plan, and we accompanied the community during their first steps. In February 2024, we greeted the first members of the community, the Daniel Carasso Fellows, first on a welcome webinar, and then face-to-face on a workshop –hosted at our offices here in Barcelona– focused on improving their communication skills.
Moreover, during the first trimester of the year, we worked alongside the communication department of the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation, to build the community’s branding. After a naming process, we chose Comunidad SABE, Sostenibilidad Alimentaria Basada en Evidencias (Food Sustainability Based on Evidence), and we “dressed it up” with its image and logo. Simultaneously, we worked on their brand strategy. In particular, we developed the digital and media strategies that will guide the community’s communication efforts during the next years.
Finally, we completed this first stage with the official introduction of the community: we launched the social media channels on X and LinkedIn; generated several fresh and appealing assets –including a video presentation of the Comunidad SABE and another one of the Fellows– and we held a face-to-face event in Madrid with stakeholders involved in the food transition, which laid the foundations that will guide the Comunidad SABE moving forward.
At Ubik media, we want to thank the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation for making us participants in this project that brings together science and social impact. It is an absolute pleasure being able to contribute to environmental change, protecting ecosystems and seeking social justice. We are excited to continue moving forward with the Comunidad SABE every step of the way.