GI SMART · Geographical Indications’ contribution to smart territorial development and sustainability. Insights for GIs producers, policy makers, consumers and local communities.

GI SMART (Geographical Indications’ contribution to smart territorial development and sustainability. Insights for GIs producers, policy makers, consumers and local communities) is a four-year lump-sum project to undertake research and demonstration activities (innovative pilot action) and provide evidence-based recommendations to strengthen the contribution of the system of geographical indications (GIs) to sustainable development, in particular to achieve the objectives of the EU Farm to Fork strategy by fostering the implementation of sustainability strategies by producers and their recognition by consumers, as well as to propose a better design of GIs policy to foster their delivery of sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, as well as more sustainable food systems. Our 17 partners (15 beneficiaries and 2 Associated Partners) representing 10 countries bring together leading academic, NGOs and stakeholder organisations to provide a multi-actor approach to ensure the project objectives are delivered with maximum impact. This proposal relates to the topic “Investigating the contribution of geographical indications to sustainable development and optimizing support for newly establish schemes” (HORIZON-CL6-2023-COMMUNITIES-01-04). GI SMART aims to assess and strengthen the contribution of GIs to the EU “Farm to Fork” strategy for sustainable food systems in Europe by providing: i) better understanding of the contribution of GIs schemes to sustainable development (including the F2F strategy); ii) improving the perception of sustainability attributes of GIs schemes that are widely implemented by the producers and their perception by consumers, local communities and society at large, iii) better and smart policy design and implementation of GIs policy to foster their delivery of sustainable agriculture and fishery, healthy and sustainable diets and sustainable food systems.