The key methodologies embrace a collaborative ethic grounded in shared heritage and conviviality, where collaboration means “co-labor” and individuals become “we”.

CONVIVIUM draws on the “ontological turn”, challenging fixed definitions and emphasizing that research and practice are relational and help shape the world. Scholars, creatives, and citizens actively participate in enacting new realities. This aligns with more-than-human thinking, which moves beyond human-centered perspectives to include the broader ecological community—plants, animals, ecosystems, and more—in decision-making.

This approach is central to redefining food heritage, inspired by the Zoöp model from the Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, which promotes coexistence across all forms of life. CONVIVIUM’s solutions are also guided by design thinking and participative deliberation, using iterative, stakeholder-driven methods like workshops and forums. The main challenge—breaking away from dominant routines—is met through the consortium’s shared capacities in empathy, critical thinking, and solidarity.

SO1. To redefine food heritage (and cultural heritage at large)

In order to make food heritage more apt to address pressing ecological and societal challenges (e.g. climate change, loss of biodiversity, cultural loss, decreasing intergenerational contact and solidarity, and advances of intolerance and authoritarianism) a new action and research framework will be developed. CONVIVIUM draws on well-established cultural heritage models based on adscription (e.g. UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, FAO’s Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, or France’s Mission Française du Patrimoine et des Cultures Alimentaires) to progressively depart from them and produce one inclusive model of co-evolutive nature. This will be done through the systematic integration of the progress and outcomes of the actions proposed by the consortium, the championing of community involvement, and intersectoral dialogue and communication. Tools assessing the impact of the policy reports, open public events, white papers, and communication strategies which inform the new model will be developed.

SO2. To revitalize traditional, sustainable food practices

CONVIVIUM blends food tradition, sustainability, and innovation to develop green and inclusive solutions for leveraging the full potential of food and agricultural landscapes, and the knowledge associated with them). These include the collaborative design, prototyping, and implementation of cultivable gardens and viticultural landscapes, a future-oriented and socially- inclusive kitchen, environmentally-friendly vineyard architecture, speculative storytelling, artistic exhibitions and performances, and a series of digital solutions addressing both the historical ties that make up community (some of them forgotten or at risk of being forgotten) and the timely ecological challenges affecting our food systems. Put together, these solutions seek to create experiences that generate a positive impact on European communities, which will be evaluated on the basis of the interest and acceptance of local communities, market promoters, and end users.

SO3. To establish food heritage as an important asset for culture, identity and inclusion, economy, tourism and territorial economic competitiveness

CONVIVIUM seeks to ensure the transformative impact of its renewed vision of food heritage beyond the project duration through the anchoring of its innovative solutions to cultural initiatives led by civil society organizations and to the economic activities of the food and tourism industries. This will be achieved through the careful identification of groups targeted by the solutions, the inclusion of interested stakeholders into the different stages of development of the solutions (so they respond to factual needs since their inception), and through effective strategies to attract stakeholder and consumer interest at the phase of implementation or market phase.

SO4. To position citizens as food heritage stakeholders by promoting the reconnection of people to their local ecosystems

CONVIVIUM recognizes that the ecological crisis is a cultural crisis; it is a crisis of relationship with the life surrounding us, and that and the way forward lies in building reciprocity, respect, and care into the ways we relate to each other and to the environment. The solutions proposed by CONVIVIUM uphold the aesthetic, sustainable and inclusive dimension of food to promote new modes of ecological bonding with the earth.3 CONVIVIUM will conduct art-based, scalable solutions in seeding, planting, tasting, and cooking; foster sustainable landscaping in cultivated lands and heritage sites through synergies between crafts and novel industrial techniques; and create immersive food experiences brought up by exhibitions and digital technologies for citizens to gain awareness of the interdependence of life forms and to appreciate food heritage as a kind of care that enables new ways of living together and a sense of belonging to the living community.