Throughout our project we have engaged in EXTENSIVE human practices work which has informed not only our idea development but our considerations in regards to an implementation plan, and the potential impacts of our project in the real world. Below you can explore our Silver-level HP work, to view our

Gold-Level Integrated Human Practices work click here.

Why food security?

Over the course of the pandemic in 2020, and the following cost of living crisis, as students based in London we witnessed rising food insecurity in our local community, with access to a nutritious diet becoming harder and harder. In 2021, war in Ukraine triggered a domino effect in the global supply of wheat, directly affecting people in the region, while simultaneously causing repercussions throughout the entire world. Indeed, prices are on the rise, citizens of both high and low-income countries are either impacted or completely unable to access primary nutritional sources [1]. Given the current sociopolitical landscape and upon close inspection of the UN sustainable development goals, our team realized the utmost importance of Goal 2: “Zero Hunger”. The recent spotlight on food insecurity opened our eyes to the long-lasting impact of hunger, spanning economic, environmental and health aspects, inspiring us to tackle the largest biotic stressor on staple crops: fungal pathogens.

Locally, there are around half a million people employed in the UK agricultural industry contributing £10bn to the GDP [2]. However, the UK is not agriculturally self-sufficient and imports 48% of the food consumed per year [3]. As a result, the price of food in the UK is sensitive to changes in the global economy and supply chain. For example, after the financial crash of 2008 UK groceries saw a price increase of up to 40%. Today, a combination of unprecedented abiotic and biotic stressors, have resulted in UK feed wheat prices increasing up to 39% as of March 2022 [4]. Therefore, reducing the vulnerability of crops to fungal diseases worldwide is essential for maintaining a high standard of living across the country.

Our Approach

Our aim was to tackle this challenge by developing a solution that would be viable, feasible, desirable and socially responsible - this means putting people first. We wanted to develop a product that was not only technically sound but that had a clear path towards implementation by being tailored to both end users and the wider context of the agricultural industry. Thus from the very beginning of the ideation stage, we adopted a framework that integrates these core values into the product development process: the Double Diamond [5].

The Double Diamond is divided into two halves: “design the right thing” and “design things right”. Each phase is in turn divided into a stage of divergent and convergent thinking, that should enable the users to explore an issue widely before taking focused action. It suggests that the design process should have four phases:  

1. Discover: Question, explore and understand the challenge at hand, setting aside any assumptions and widening your horizon. This involves identifying the stakeholders affected and involved in this issue, and seeking their insights.    
2. Define: The second phase is about interpreting the findings gathered, understanding how the problem and user align, discerning the unmet needs. The outcome should be a reframing of the problem, for example identifying a specific opportunity or challenge within the wider context. The Double Diamond is not linear, at this stage it is valuable to seek out stakeholders once again to evaluate whether the new problem statement is accurate. Before moving onto the next diamond, one must make sure they are designing the right thing.  
3. Develop: Ideate different answers to the clear problem statement. This should be an iterative process: developing, testing against requirements identified earlier and refining until you are able to select a single solution.  
4. Deliver: Create a prototype based on the solution selected in the previous phase. This involves not only building a prototype, but testing out the consequences of the idea across the system/supply chains and stakeholder groups and ideating around sustainable scale to come up with a business model that does not betray the values guiding the design at the outset.

Within our ideation process we went through several cycles of the Double Diamond process, as we interacted with more stakeholders and made changes based on their feedback. View this here in our Integrated Human Practices page!

Responsible Innovation

Food is an integral part of human existence, and as such is a sensitive issue. Food insecurity is a challenge that affects every community around the world, most acutely those part of marginalised groups. The agricultural industry at a global scale is also characterised by inequality, whether that be environmental, economic, technological or knowledge based, with resource-poor farmers competing against highly industrialised enterprises [6]. Given this landscape, we wanted to ensure we were engaging in responsible innovation, acknowledging that innovation can have unpredictable outcomes and raise questions and dilemmas. During our ideation phase we went through several cycles of the Double Diamond framework as we optimised our idea based on feedback garnered from a diverse array of stakeholders spanning key groups: farmers (our final users), experts, regulatory bodies and the general public. To better understand the impact our research could have, beneficial or otherwise, we adopted the UKRI AREA framework [7].
‍

Anticipate:
Explore possible impacts, intended or otherwise, in different domains such as economic, social and environmental. Describe and analyse implications of the research that may otherwise not be discussed. We employed this stage during the Discover and Develop steps of the design process, as we met with farmers, members of the public and experts trying to better understand the issue of food insecurity, challenges with current solutions and the interconnectedness of this issue with other SDG goals. This enabled us to think more holistically about our solution, and value the importance of user requirements such as ease of storage and accessibility, to ensure our product is equitable. Speaking to farmers and the general public specifically, opened our eyes to potential risks our ideas might pose, empowering us to reflect on the same at the early stages of the project for example in regards to the issue of how our biocontrol agent might affect soil composition leading to our modelling of the wheat rhizosphere. This reflection also lead us to develop a Product Risk Assessment framework, informed by an expert in regulation Prof. Joyce Tait.  
‍
‍Reflect:
‍Within this stage, the goal is to reflect on the purposes, motivations and potential implications of the research being conducted, together with the associated uncertainties, dilemmas, areas of ignorance and social transformations these may bring. As we first began our ideation stage, we looked at issues faced in our local community as well as on a global scale, and evaluated where we found synthetic biology to fit as an appropriate and powerful tool towards creating a solution. This both explorative and reflective process led us to selecting the issue of fungal infections, and specifically the timeliness of treatment.  

‍Engage:
‍This stage focuses on creating a space for dialogue, discussion and debate involving different stakeholder groups in an inclusive manner. In order to gain a deeper understanding of how a wide range of stakeholders might impact our project and vice versa, we sought to engage these groups via different formats. We were able to foster interesting discussions with the general public at our interactive booth at the Great Exhibition Road Festival, an annual celebration of science that takes place in London every year attracting more than 38000 visitors in 2022! Together with conducting a survey, this experience provided us with great insight into the wants, needs and concerns of this stakeholder group. Traveling and visiting farmers around the world, meeting them where they work and maintaining those connections, ensured that we utilised the vast experience of these individuals and their industry.

‍Act:
‍To ensure we are innovating responsibly it’s imperative that the processes outlined above influence the direction and trajectory of the project itself. Throughout our entire project from ideation to the development of a business plan, we have been driven by insights from our stakeholders. Feedback from them has informed choices in our design, as you can note in the User-Centered Design section of our Proposed Implementation Page. As we heard from a larger pool of our end-users, their experience caused us to reconsider and alter some aspects of our project and research, resulting in iterative cycles of the Double Diamond, until we reached an idea that clearly addressed all their needs and matched their wants as well. Visit our Integrated Human Practices page to view how each of our discussions and activities with stakeholders shaped our project!