Francesca Forno holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Strathclyde (UK). She is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. Her interests include sustainable consumption and political consumerism. A special focus in these areas is on the consequences of the spread of market-based forms of action for citizens’ participation and mobilisation. She has published papers on civic participation and social movements, conducting research on political consumerism, collaborative consumption, grassroots initiatives on social eco-innovation and alternative food networks. Her work has appeared in journals including the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Journal of Consumer Culture, the International Journal of Consumer Studies, South European Politics and Society and the British Food Journal, as well as in collections of essays published by Oxford University Press, Wiley-Blackwell and Zed Books.

Natalia Magnani holds a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She is an Associate Professor in Environmental Sociology and Urban/Rural Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. Her research interests include energy transition, energy communities, sustainable development and environmental conflicts. On these issues she has published various articles in internationally renown journals such as Energy Policy, Energy Research & Social Science, Energy, Journal of Rural Studies, Organization & Environment in addition to books and book chapters.

Margherita Brunori is an Associate Professor in Agriculture and Food Law at the University of Brescia, Department of Law, Italy. She holds a degree in law and a PhD in ‘Politics, Human Rights and Sustainability’, obtained at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna with a thesis on the emerging international standards on access to land and security of tenure and the role of soft law in the UN system. Her research interests are Agriculture and Food Law, Natural Resources Governance, Human Rights and Corporate Responsibility. She has worked on the participatory dimension of the right to adequate food and access to natural resources, and currently follows a project on socio-technical innovations in European food systems.

Alice Dal Gobbo is a Research fellow at the School of International Studies – SIS, University of Trento (Italy). She has completed her PhD at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. She is interested in ecology and socio-economic transitions in the context of current transformations of the capitalist system. Her approach brings together theoretical reflections around value, life and new-materialist understandings of socio-ecological collectives with the (methodological) search for new ways of studying and conceptualizing them. Particularly interested in subjectivity and the ways systemic dynamics are embodied in day-to-day life, much of her investigations have approached environmentally relevant everyday practices through an analytical lens drawing on neo-Marxist, eco-feminist and new materialist approaches.

Mattia Andreola is a Ph.D. candidate in Agrifood and Environmental Sciences at the University of Trento and a research fellow in the European project SURFIT – Scaling Urban Regenerative Food Systems in Transition, aimed at advancing sustainable urban-rural food systems and supporting local food policies. He earned his master’s degree in Sociology and Social Research from the University of Trento in 2020. During his internship and master’s thesis, he contributed to the institutional project Nutrire Trento, fostering his interest in the sociology of food and agriculture. Mattia has also been a visiting researcher at SIFO – the National Institute for Consumer Research, University of Oslo.

Michela Giovannini is an Assistant Professor at the Competence Center for the Management of Cooperatives at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz). She holds a Ph.D. in Local Development and Global Dynamics from the University of Trento (2014). Her research has primarily focused on social and solidarity economy organizations in Latin America (Mexico, Chile) and Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal). Michela was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Social Economy at the University of Liège (Belgium). She has also collaborated with Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises) and contributed to several international research projects. Her research interests include social and solidarity economy, indigenous peoples’ organizations, social movements, and local development.

Gaia Maronilli is a public officer at the Municipality of Trento, working in the Sustainable Urban Policies Office. She was specifically hired for the European project SURFIT – Scaling Urban Regenerative Food Systems in Transition to advance the city’s commitment to developing a local food policy. Gaia holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Trento and a master’s degree in Social Planning for Sustainability, Innovation, and Gender Inclusion from Sapienza University of Rome. Her primary interests include sustainable food systems, with a focus on scaling alternative food networks, local food policies, and participatory processes.

Maria Antonietta Maneschi is a political scientist with expertise in agriculture and food systems sustainability. She studied Environmental Policy at Sciences Po Paris, specializing in the sustainability of agricultural and food systems. Her master’s thesis focused on the European Common Agricultural Policy and the From Farm to Fork Strategy. Maria Antonietta has worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and as an evaluator for the World Food Programme. She is currently a research fellow in the Making Food Democracy project at the University of Trento, where she investigates food democracy within emerging Sustainable Urban Food Policy Strategies across Europe.

Cristina Zara is a Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Social Research with a background in human geography. Her work is informed by critical theory and cultural studies, adopting a strongly interdisciplinary approach that bridges sociology and anthropology. She specializes in socio-economic and cultural processes of urban change and sustainability, socio-spatial justice, and everyday material and embodied geographies. Among these areas, she has developed a particular interest in the critical geographies of food, explored through high-profile social science research projects such as NUECity, PANEX-Youth, and RCTN. Her research often incorporates intergenerational and futures perspectives, with her published work (e.g., Zara et al. 2022) rethinking the relationships between youth, nature, and resources—particularly food—through innovative relational and new materialist approaches to sustainability.