Prototyping Open Innovation Models for ICT-Enabled Manufacturing in Food and Packaging

Lead Research Organisation: Royal College of Art
Department Name: School of Design

Abstract

The aim of the Prototyping Open Innovation Models cluster is to design and develop a new crowd sourced food and package design and innovation platform comprised of a suite of ICT tools for state-of-the-art manufacturing processes and implementing "customers in the loop" co-creation product development processes. The platform and the tools will enable (i) Harvesting content from the crowd and lead users, (ii) Synthesising content into an actionable format, and (iii) Integrating design and production systems. The idea for the platform is inspired by behaviours that are emerging on social media sites that see participants congregate around a current issue (citizen journalism - Arab Spring), ICT problems (user fora), leisure activities (maker/hacker communities - Ikea Hacker, Hackerspaces, food hacking), knowledge (Wikipedia), citizen science (Nasa's Stardust@home), and create and share content around such aspects.
We are in an age of participation, where consumers no longer need to be on the periphery of development. Companies are increasingly finding that ideas and innovations originate from outside their organisations. 'Crowd-sourcing' is gathering pace, as companies seek to tap into the global knowledge base through their 'open innovation' strategies. Brands need to develop new relationships with Prosumers in which they may become a substantial part of the design and development process. We propose to apply this model of behaviour to explore opportunities for open innovation whereby a disparate group of individuals congregate around food and packaging design and production (two of the largest industry sectors in the UK). Packaging is not only a container, but it is one of the means of communication of the product that will make it recognized and remembered.
The platform and plug-in tools comprise a virtual food product development environment that aims to de-bottleneck and streamline the food innovation pipeline by a cloud-based software platform and through the use of open innovation models to engage the consumer in the product development loop. This will significantly shorten the time to market for such new products by aligning and integrating design, manufacturing processes and systems with people.
The objectives of the cluster are:
- To design, develop, test and evaluate open innovation models for food manufacturing with real case studies from our industrial collaborators focused on enabling conversation and collaboration between consumers and brands for developing new food products
- To design and implement mechanisms to feedback the 'Crowd's' needs and real world use, interaction and experience and translate these into design specifications of desired attributes for the food product they wish to consume, by collaborating directly with product development and manufacturing specialists
- To develop facilities to allow a range of formal and informal relationships (interaction models) to be managed in a manner that is sensitive to the issues of privacy, IP and responsibility
- To develop the methodology, ICT tools and a knowledge base to convert desired attributes of food into food product and packaging specification that can be produced and delivered to the consumer
- To develop responsive manufacturing models and an ICT toolset to enable fast response to new and emerging food products by flexibly aligning and coordinating manufacturing resource to such needs
- To implement and integrate all tools and methodologies into a collaborative cloud-based ICT platform enabling the digital collaboration between consumers, product developers and manufacturers
- To conduct a series of feasibility studies identified jointly with our industrial partners to test and demonstrate our approach, methodologies and ICT tools
- To conduct a series of workshops, seminars and outreach activities to disseminate our findings and methodologies and develop and extend our industrial user network

Planned Impact

The annual spending on food and soft drinks in the UK is £172 billion spanning many product categories. This translates to annual contributions of over £80 billion in revenue to the UK economy which is approximately 7% of GDP. It is the UK's largest manufacturing sector employing over 3.5 million people across 196,000 enterprises in the supply chain. Food packaging plays an integral and vital role in the food manufacturing and supply chain systems and plays an important role in achieving greater sustainability in the food industry in order to meet a raft of EU environmental legislation and measures. The food supply chain alone is responsible for 22% of the UK greenhouse gas emissions creating 19 million tonnes of CO2 every year. The proposed research meets the aspirations and priorities of the ICT-enable Manufacturing Call. Our multidisciplinary team brings together designers, manufacturing engineers, and computer scientists. Centred on 'customers in the loop' we will achieve real-world change within the 'engineering design in the digital world' challenge. Our ambition to achieve economic, societal and environmental change meets the aspirations of forward looking reports concerning the food industry, the EPSRC Manufacturing the Future theme with its recognition of the importance of Manufacturing Informatics, and the challenges set out in the BIS Growth Review Framework for Advanced Manufacturing. Our programme will address product design (food manufacture and food packaging) and service innovation (development of ICT platforms) within the food industry. It is anticipated that our ICT platforms for the development of food product and food packaging design will encourage the growth of a service-led ICT-manufacturing sector within the food industry thus enabling the UK food industry to continue to maintain its standing as the largest manufacturing sector in the UK.

The research cluster will develop cloud-based ICT platform(s) that will enable customers to design food products and food packaging and move away from products manufactured for consumers to products that are designed by consumers. Design consultancies and stakeholders in food manufacture and food packaging industries will utilise crowd sourcing to; a) develop more informed food products with respect to customisation, healthy eating and sensory experience of food, and b) develop food packaging with respect to consumer design, sustainable materials and reconfigurable manufacturing processes. Consumers will benefit through improved products based on customer preferences. Wider societal and environmental benefits will accrue through healthier eating, and reduced waste across the value chain. From a wider perspective we anticipate the platform will provide the foundations for use by other industry sectors including fast moving consumer goods, home furnishings, and assisted living.

Our programme has been designed to closely involve representatives of all stakeholders whose expertise is required to execute the proposed research and ensure its take-up by end users. From the outset the programme will engage with a number of stakeholders in food production and food packaging through a series of feasibility studies, networking and outreach activities, in addition to the cluster's formal industrial collaborators. In terms of technology transfer, we anticipate using software licensing agreements to commercially exploit the ICT platform and tools with respect to design consultancies and stakeholders in food production and packaging sectors. The programme of research will ensure the UK food manufacture and food packaging sector continues to deliver products that will meet future consumer demand and continue to remain a competitive industry by de-bottlenecking the food innovation and manufacturing pipeline.
 
Title On line training video on the Open Food Preference Marketplace web application 
Description The on line video is an on line training and onboarding tool for a registered user on the use of the preference marketplace web application. A preference marketplace is web based crowdsourcing approach to collect and aggregate information and extract new knowledge from a large diverse group around a specific idea or concept and identify the most promising. This application has been developed by the Harris Research Group to allow anyone, anywhere, to have a say in the design and development of any product feature or idea through a game-like interface. In particular, to crowdsource the design of food products. This is the first time this approach has ever been used to provide a direct input into food product design, ultimately placing the consumer into the food product design and development loop and its manufacture. The digital artefact was purposely prepared for information, public engagement and training provision. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact On line training for registered users of the preference marketplace. This has been a valuable artefact in providing remote training to participants of our research who used the web application and provided inputs and data. The video is accessible after creation of an account and first log in. 
URL http://www.foodpreferencemarketplace.com/Welcome.jsp
 
Title Public engagement and onboarding video for the Open Food Preference Marketplace Web Application and Research 
Description The on line video provides an easy to follow description and basic training of what a preference marketplace is for the purpose of subsequently using the preference marketplace web application I developed. A preference marketplace is web based crowdsourcing approach to collect and aggregate information and extract new knowledge from a large diverse group around a specific idea or concept and identify the most promising. I have developed this web application to allow anyone, anywhere, to have a say in the design and development of any product feature or idea through a game-like interface. In particular, to crowdsource the design of food products. This is the first time this approach has ever been used to provide a direct input into food product design, ultimately placing the consumer into the food product design and development loop and its manufacture. This digital artefact has been purposely prepared by the Harris Research Group for training provision. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact The video has been used to provide overview training on the overall concept, project and crowdsourcing web application I developed. Subsequently users have been able to sign up and use the software and provided data and inputs to the research through the various workshops my team and I organised. The video remains available on line for anyone to access and understand the research in this area, use the web application and continuously provide inputs into the research. Also it plays the role of explaining the research to instigate new collaborations and engagement with specialists and the general public. 
URL http://www.foodpreferencemarketplace.com/Welcome.jsp
 
Description Novel devices, scales and algorithms generate data which can be used to:
A) engage people in creative food idea generation, specifically a Self-Authoring Tools concept which allows people to record video clips of a recipe that they are cooking and to edit and annotate them using an authoring app to produce a digital recipe card that can be shared in a repository;
B) recommend existing commercial products which suit the individual consumer, specifically the Preference Market software;
C) to drive a real-world, continuous manufacturing plant to produce the desired product in real time.

With this work we have developed novel techniques and methodologies to crowdsource food product design. We have also demonstrated routes to manufacture for certain type of food products in particular liquid formulations and drinks. With this research we have been able to meet these project objectives:

- To design, develop, test and evaluate open innovation models for food manufacturing with real case studies from our industrial collaborators focused on enabling conversation and collaboration between consumers and brands for developing new food products

- To design and implement mechanisms to feedback the 'Crowd's' needs and real world use, interaction and experience and translate these into design specifications of desired attributes for the food product they wish to consume, by collaborating directly with product development and manufacturing specialists

- To develop facilities to allow a range of formal and informal relationships (interaction models) to be managed in a manner that is sensitive to the issues of privacy, IP and responsibility

- To develop the methodology, ICT tools and a knowledge base to convert desired attributes of food into food product and packaging specification that can be produced and delivered to the consumer

- To develop responsive manufacturing models and an ICT toolset to enable fast response to new and emerging food products by flexibly aligning and coordinating manufacturing resource to such needs

To implement and integrate all tools and methodologies into a collaborative cloud-based ICT platform enabling the digital collaboration between consumers, product developers and manufacturers

- To conduct a series of feasibility studies identified jointly with our industrial partners to test and demonstrate our approach, methodologies and ICT tools

- To conduct a series of workshops, seminars and outreach activities to disseminate our findings and methodologies and develop and extend our industrial user network
Exploitation Route Through our publications on the Self-Authoring Tools, the food industry sector could adopt this as an open innovation toolkit.
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink

Creative Economy

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

 
Description DECSYS - a novel survey platform designed to capture vagueness and uncertainty in responses: Research on handling uncertain data conducted throughout the project has contributed to the development of DECSYS, an open source platform enabling the collation of both traditional and non-numeric (e.g. interval-valued) survey responses. The latter is important as it enables the effective and efficient elicitation of additional information, such as uncertainty, which is lost using traditional quantitative response formats. Initial follow-on research such as https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9177634 indicates that such information is already very valuable in practice, for example highlighting how not just specific properties of products influence purchase intention, but how perceived uncertainty in said properties, for example uncertainty on a product's ethical footprint, impact the uncertainty around purchase intention. Further research is ongoing and feeding into follow-on research proposals. We developed on-line crowdsourcing tools that allowed consumers to engage directly with New Product Development processes with food manufacturers. We used those tools which are accessible on line currently (www.foodpreferencemarketplace.com) to help one of our partners Premier Foods obtain direct inputs on a new food kit product they have been developing. The outputs informed the process and highlighted the need for intellectual property management. We also used these tools together with the physical food formulation device we developed to design a new energy drink. We engaged users from across the globe in the first iteration to obtain preferences that were used to drive the physical preparation of the product on our machine. Then we conducted a tasting workshop and used the software to correlate the findings between the two iterations. We repeated the process with a professional tasting panel of Premier Foods and found a correlation of over 80% between the on line iteration and the tasting panels. We also employed crowdsourcing approaches using techniques using interval valued questionnaires and again showed that these are easy to deploy and reliable to inform NPD decision making. The key result was that the preference marketplace approach that embeds motivational aspects for user engagement and the right kind of presentation of target design features can be a reliable tool to obtain initial rapid validation of new products. Continuous manufacturing methods we developed and tested we found that they can scale from development to large scales in the case of drinks with direct inputs from consumers. The entire work describe here had been possible through the large number of workshops and user iterations we had conducted and also the close working with our lead partner Premier Foods.
First Year Of Impact 2018
Sector Agriculture, Food and Drink
Impact Types Economic

 
Title Consumer Driven New Product Development in Future Re-Distributed Models of Sustainable Production and Consumption 
Description Database linked to our accepted paper to be presented at the 50th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems will be held on May 3rd-5th, 2017 in Taichung, Taiwan 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact CIRP conference and subsequent use and analysis by the Cranfield team and the research collaborators of the Harris Research Group 
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Consumer_Driven_New_Product_Development_in_Future_Re-Distributed_Model...
 
Title Linking Human and Machine - Towards Consumer - Driven Automated Manufacturing 
Description This is the collection of data described in S. Isaev, C. Makatsoris, M. Jressiat and C. Wagner, "Linking human and machine - towards consumer-driven automated manufacturing," 2016 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), Vancouver, BC, 2016, pp. 1789-1796. doi: 10.1109/FUZZ-IEEE.2016.7737907 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Conference publication 
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Linking_Human_and_Machine_-_Towards_Consumer_-_Driven_Automated_Manufa...
 
Title Workshops for Open Food Project 
Description This is a collection of data and results related to several workshops conducted as part of the Open Food Project, by Harris Makatsoris' research group. The workshops involved the testing of novel crowdsourcing methodologies both off-line and on-line via a purposely developed web application delivering in effect the crowdsourcing/ICT platform part of the project, which has been one of the three major aspects of the research. The preference market web application represents a novel approach to large scale engagement of consumers with new product development processes and teams which is one of the approaches explored in this project, by Cranfield University. The project's industrial collaborators have also been involved in this research. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2014 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Testing of commercially available food products through our industrial collaborators against the preference marketplace approach and compare as a viable alternative to existing methods. Also guiding the development of the preference marketplace platform. 
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Workshop_Series_Towards_Preference_Marketplace_Development/4743583
 
Description Personalised Functional Consumer Products for Health and Well Being 
Organisation University of Leeds
Department School of Computing Leeds
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution An extended collaboration was triggered by the Open Food project to include Surrey Chemical Engineering and Health Sciences and Nutrition and Leeds Computer Science. This new collaboration aims at taking the research conducted in the Open Food project further with the preparation of large grant applications. A large bid for a new EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub has been prepared and shortlisted for full submission.
Collaborator Contribution An extended collaboration was triggered by the Open Food project to include Surrey Chemical Engineering and Health Sciences and Nutrition and Leeds Computer Science. This new collaboration aims at taking the research conducted in the Open Food project further with the preparation of large grant applications. A large bid for a new EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub has been prepared and shortlisted for full submission.
Impact Large proposal with title EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub For Personalised Functional Consumer Products for Health and Well Being
Start Year 2017
 
Description Personalised Functional Consumer Products for Health and Well Being 
Organisation University of Surrey
Department Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution An extended collaboration was triggered by the Open Food project to include Surrey Chemical Engineering and Health Sciences and Nutrition and Leeds Computer Science. This new collaboration aims at taking the research conducted in the Open Food project further with the preparation of large grant applications. A large bid for a new EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub has been prepared and shortlisted for full submission.
Collaborator Contribution An extended collaboration was triggered by the Open Food project to include Surrey Chemical Engineering and Health Sciences and Nutrition and Leeds Computer Science. This new collaboration aims at taking the research conducted in the Open Food project further with the preparation of large grant applications. A large bid for a new EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub has been prepared and shortlisted for full submission.
Impact Large proposal with title EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub For Personalised Functional Consumer Products for Health and Well Being
Start Year 2017
 
Description Research collaboration with Premier Foods 
Organisation Premier Foods Group Ltd
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution The project team has been working in loose collaboration with Premier Foods.
Collaborator Contribution The time and expertise of staff. Access to specialist sensory panels.
Impact No outcomes as yet, as work is still ongoing
Start Year 2013
 
Title A MODULAR FLOW REACTOR 
Description A modular flow reactor is formed of a plurality of modules, wherein each module comprises a body having at least one conduit passing therethrough, and wherein a plurality of said modules are aligned along a longitudinal axis such that said conduits of said modules are aligned to form a passage for fluid, wherein each module has a length along said longitudinal axis which is less than the length of the module perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. The modules are "slices" rather than "tubes" and a plurality of said modules can be aligned linearly so that the conduits form a tube. 
IP Reference WO2013050764 
Protection Patent granted
Year Protection Granted 2013
Licensed Commercial In Confidence
Impact Cranfield engaged in commercialisation activities with a commercial partner Centillion Technology Limited
 
Title A Modular Flow Reactor 
Description The present invention relates to a section for a modular flow reactor and to a reactor incorporating said section. In particular, it relates to a section which can be ssembled and disassembled easily for cleaning, can be manufactured by means of 3D 'printing' techniques and which can have different functions depending on the user's needs. 
IP Reference GB1117064.4 
Protection Patent application published
Year Protection Granted
Licensed Commercial In Confidence
Impact Cranfield engaged in commercialisation activities with a commercial partner Centillion Technology Limited
 
Title MODULAR FLOW REACTOR 
Description A modular flow reactor is formed of a plurality of modules, wherein each module comprises a body having at least one conduit passing therethrough, and wherein a plurality of said modules are aligned along a longitudinal axis such that said conduits of said modules are aligned to form a passage for fluid, wherein each module has a length along said longitudinal axis which is less than the length of the module perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. The modules are “slices” rather than “tubes” and a plurality of said modules can be aligned linearly so that the conduits form a tube. 
IP Reference US2015010445 
Protection Patent granted
Year Protection Granted 2015
Licensed Commercial In Confidence
Impact This device has been essential for this project, as it allows the rapid formulation/prototyping of liquid food formulations and the concurrent design of the manufacturing process of the formulation. There are already several outputs this device is being described: 1. S. Isaev, C. Makatsoris, M. Jressiat and C. Wagner, "Linking human and machine - towards consumer-driven automated manufacturing," 2016 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), Vancouver, BC, 2016, pp. 1789-1796.
 
Title A Blockchain enabled Preference Marketplace 
Description This is the second version of the Open Food preference Marketplace. It now includes blockchain technology and a proprietary virtual coin called BiteCoin. Consumer motivation has been critical to the use of the approach for crowdsourcing consumer product design and this methodology allows a very effective reward mechanism. A preference marketplace is web based crowdsourcing approach to collect and aggregate information and extract new knowledge from a large diverse group around a specific idea or concept and identify the most promising. This web application was conceived, designed and implemented into it s present form by the Harris Research Group to allow anyone, anywhere, to have a say in the design and development of any product feature or idea through a game-like interface. In particular, to crowdsource the design of food products. This is the first time this approach has ever been used to provide a direct input into food product design, ultimately placing the consumer into the food product design and development loop and its manufacture. The software has been used to date in several workshops involving a number of participants for food actual food products from my industrial collaborators. The results of these workshops can be found by following the DOIs provided. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact The software has been used to conduct several workshops related to two EPSRC projects. The results of these can be found here: A. DOI: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.4737694 B. DOI: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.4740397 C. DOI: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.4740397 and 10.17862/cranfield.rd.7837817. The software usage is currently ongoing with many more workshops and trials planned going forward. 
URL http://www.foodpreferencemarketplace.com/Welcome.jsp
 
Title The Open Food Preference Marketplace 
Description A preference marketplace is web based crowdsourcing approach to collect and aggregate information and extract new knowledge from a large diverse group around a specific idea or concept and identify the most promising. This web application was conceived, designed and implemented into it s present form by the Harris Research Group to allow anyone, anywhere, to have a say in the design and development of any product feature or idea through a game-like interface. In particular, to crowdsource the design of food products. This is the first time this approach has ever been used to provide a direct input into food product design, ultimately placing the consumer into the food product design and development loop and its manufacture. The software has been used to date in several workshops involving a number of participants for food actual food products from my industrial collaborators. The results of these workshops can be found by following the DOIs provided. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact The software has been used to conduct several workshops related to two EPSRC projects. The results of these can be found here: A. DOI: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.4737694 B. DOI: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.4740397 C. DOI: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.4740397 
URL http://www.foodpreferencemarketplace.com/Welcome.jsp
 
Company Name Centillion Technology 
Description Centillion Technology manufactures flow chemistry technology that enables manufacturers to improve productivity and reduce costs. 
Year Established 2017 
Impact Organisation established in part as a result of C. Makatsoris' research. Commercialisation of continuous manufacturing technology
Website http://centillion.eu
 
Description Cake Lab 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The Cake Lab was a study to test the design of cake configurator tools together with a proxy cake manufacturer, hosted at a cafe in Brighton.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Consumer Driven Energy Drink Development - Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact This workshop explored how the novel methodology for design and manufacture of consumer-driven personalised Energy Drinks (ED) using new technologies developed by Cranfield, could allow consumers and the general public to design their own beverage and have it rapidly manufactured. Initially, a novel online crowdsourcing Open Innovation platform called 'Preference Marketplace' is used to identify consumer's preferences & sensory attributes for the formulation of ED and then followed by manufacturing of consumer-preferred ED using a novel automated continuous flow manufacturing reactor for sensory evaluation. By combining the two technologies, it is now possible to produce an economical and sustainable on-demand formulated liquid food products that meet consumer needs.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://doi.org/10.17862/cranfield.rd.5984887
 
Description Consumer Driven Energy Drink Development Demonstration at the Food Design Thinking Exhibition 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We presented our software and manufacturing platforms for consumer driven rapid energy drink formulation at the Food Design Thinking Festival with a stall at this event in London's Borough Market. We demonstrated our developments and made contacts with international audiences and potential users of the technology. This activity was featured on BBC Click with an interview.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://m.londondesignfestival.com/events/food-design-thinking
 
Description Crossing Over: The Art & Science of Multi-sensory Perception 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Paris Selinas, the RA on the Open Kitchen part of the project participated in an RCA-Oxford event: Crossing Over: The Art & Science of Multi-sensory Perception. This joint mini one-day symposium and exhibition between the Royal College of Art and University of Oxford will explore how our perception can be potentially used in a creative context. Three researchers from each institution will discuss the following keywords during this symposium.

KEYWORDS: synaesthesia, design provocation, sensory manipulation, multi-sensory integrations, food and flavor, vision and taste, sensory experiments, experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, crossmodal research

Speakers

11:00 - 11:10am: Bruna Petreca (RCA)

Welcoming

11.10-11.30am: Paris Selinas (RCA)
The food industry has developed sophisticated tools and methods to measure the mechanical properties of food. However, the tasting experience is an affective, multisensory phenomenon that goes beyond the composition of ingredients. This presentation will explore how different ways of human expression (verbal language, visual representations & embodiment) can - or, in cases, cannot, enable people to articulate their tasting experiences. This work lies on the intersection of Human - Computer Interaction, Food Design and Open Design. Implications and opportunities for these three areas will be discussed.

11.30-11.50am: Chang Hee Lee (RCA)
This presentation considers that the extensive inputs of synesthesia have exceptional potentials that are capable of conceiving exciting design provocations. The presentation will cover how the intriguing properties of synesthesia can contribute to and encourage design outputs within the context of design. The presentation will mainly discuss three different properties of synaesthesia (translation, narrative and mental imagery) and will explore how they can potentially be applied in creative practices.

11.50am-12.50pm: Alejandro Salgado Montejo (Oxford), Clea Dese Brock (Oxford), Mathew Tompkins (Oxford)
How stable is our perception? Is perception the same as reality? Can we hack perception to alter reality? We have created a sensory story that involves vision, taste, touch, and sound, in order to discuss how our sensory experience greatly defines who we are, what we think, and what we believe. We have cooked up a series of demonstrations designed to invite you to explore your sensory experience and challenge you to rethink the senses. First Matt Tompkins will talk about vision and sensory illusions and how we can manipulate attention to create surprise and hack our visual experience. Afterwards Alejandro Salgado-Montejo will talk about the body as a mediator of vision-taste associations and their implications in everyday experiences and expectations. Finally Clea Desebrock will discuss how sound can mediate many of our everyday experiences and how we can tailor sonic messages to hack vision and taste.

12.50-1pm: Q&A
Round table discussion, chaired by Bruna Petreca

1-1.30pm: Exhibition
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/crossing-over-art-science-multisensory-perception/
 
Description Film screening "Like Water for Chocolate" - followed by a group conversation and sensory experience 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Paris Selinas, a Research Associate at the RCA, was invited as a guest speaker at a film night. The event was organised by UCL as part of the together science EU project. From the press release: "The special film night we will not only enjoy a delightful film but also taste a recipe or two from the original book "Like Water for Chocolate". We will also have two very special guests with whom, delicious treat in hand, we will open up the salient themes of the film and discuss the interplay between food and senses". The discussion that followed revolved around the multi-sensory perception of food, with the audiences sharing own experiences on the topic and researchers analyzing the scientific underpinning and creative potential of these phenomena.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.meetup.com/Science-has-no-Borders/events/233141787/
 
Description Food Design Thinking during London Design Festival 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Led by the RCA team, the project hosted an exhibit called 'Food Design Thinking' at London's Borough Market, as part of the London Design Festival. Research work and a user study were featured in the exhibit.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://m.londondesignfestival.com/events/food-design-thinking
 
Description Food Frictions 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Open Food workshop at the Food Frictions Conference in ArtEZ (Univ of the Arts, Arnhem) aimed to draw attention to the bodily expressions we do while cooking, and suggest a new way of understanding and selecting recipes based on actions. After a short presentation, in which we explained the background of our research, we introduced the workshop activity to our participants. People started by individually recalling and performing a favourite action while cooking. This could be anything, from personal tricks to measure quantities to interactions that they just find satisfying. Then, participants in each table put their actions together, and created a dish out of them using paper - instead of the typical way of selecting a recipe based on taste or ingredients. The actions and resulting paper dishes were video and photo recorded, and will be part of an online recipe recommendation system that prioritizes bodily experiences.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL http://foodfriction.artez.nl/
 
Description From Preferences to Ingredients - Customised Beverage Product Formulation Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This work aims to test if we can create tailored orange drinks from a consumer's description of their ideal drink. Their description is converted into ingredient quantities, with which a drink is created using our beverage formulator. The consumer then tastes the drink and assesses if it correctly matches what they requested.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://doi.org/10.17862/cranfield.rd.5984938
 
Description Imperial Festival 2017: Food of Tomorrow: Imperial Fringe 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The Open Kitchen took part in the Imperial Festival 2017 to showcase the tools in development and to test with people. The College's free annual festival returned to our South Kensington campus on the 6th and 7th of May giving the public an opportunity to go behind-the-scenes and explore the latest research. The Imperial Festival is comprised of interactive science, research demonstrations, technology demos and creative performances: Flying robots, immersive art and delicious food.

The Festival provided something for all ages to enjoy, from live interactive experiments, new technology demonstrations, in-depth talks, lab tours, musical and dance-based performances, and creative workshops within zones themed around Robots, Superbugs, Health & Body, the Future, and Energy and Environment.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.imperial.ac.uk/festival/about/festival-2017/
 
Description Online Research Workshop II on Preference Marketplace 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Following our first online workshop, we have conducted the second online workshop in order to test the performance of the software with larger participant number. 30 participants attended. The workshop period was 1 hour, first fifteen minutes was introduction the software and case study. A new food product was used as case study in order to identify its key kit components. The case study was provided from our industrial collaborator and it was a real-world new food product development. Software worked well and we collected large amount of data in hour. Participants completed a survey to express their feelings and usability of the software at the end of the workshop. This workshop was organised by Harris Makatsoris research group at Cranfield University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Workshop_Series_Towards_Preference_Marketplace_Development/4743583
 
Description Online Research Workshop III on Preference Marketplace 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact 27 postgraduate students were recruited to test the performance of the software in longer time activity. We followed a different approach than our pervious research workshops, We only introduced the software, URL and case studies then we let participants to access the software form anywhere and anytime they wish. We activated the software 1 week online access time. Participants can attend to the research on and off. The software performed well in terms of functionality and we collected large amount of data to identify key kit components of the new food product. This workshop was organised by the Harris Makatsoris research group at Cranfield University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Workshop_Series_Towards_Preference_Marketplace_Development/4743583
 
Description Online Research Workshop on Preference Marketplace 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact After our paper based workshops, we completed the development of the digital version of the preference marketplace. We have conducted an online workshops to test the performance of the software, user interface and user engagement. Workshop time was 1 hour and 12 participants attended. Food product was used as case study to collect data and compare with common consumer engagement methods. The software was only reachable from internal university domain. We asked participants to fill a survey to understand their feelings about the software and user interface. We continued to improve user interface and experience according to the participants feedback. This workshop was organised by Harris Makatsoris research group at Brunel University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Workshop_Series_Towards_Preference_Marketplace_Development/4743583
 
Description Open Kitchen Self-Authoring Tools study at The Cook House, Borough Market, London 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The Open Kitchen Self-Authoring Tools research study was about supporting people to create digital recipe cards using digital 'self-authoring tools' whilst cooking a dish in an 'Open Kitchen'.

The 'self-authoring tools' were comprised of a video capture interface, with which participants could control the capture of specific elements of their recipe whilst cooking, and a video editing app. The resulting recipe card was uploaded to an online open repository of recipes, which anyone can use. We wanted to observe the efficacy of the tools in enabling people to capture the requisite elements of their recipe and to author their recipe cards using the app; we were also interested in how such a repository could be a platform to facilitate discussions between people and food manufacturers about food ideas.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Open Kitchen probe study 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact The Open Kitchen element of the project hosted a series of studies in July, August and September at London Borough Market.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Openfood featured in BBC 'Click' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The exhibits in the Food Design Thinking event during London Design Festival were featured in BBC 'Click' 'Your Face or Mine'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09t2766
 
Description Personalised Beverage Design, Formulation and Manufacturing 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The food industry aims to create and supply food and drink products that satisfy their customers. Currently, products cannot be tailored to meet each individual's desires, only to the collective preferences of target markets. Is it possible to achieve the former, creating food products that match the individual consumer's explicit preferences? To achieve this, we must discover how consumer's perceive products. Once their perceptions are understood, we can tailor ingredient quantities to match the individual's desired product. We will test this concept on orange beverages.
This work aims to test if we can create tailored orange drinks from a consumer's description of their ideal drink. Their description is converted into ingredient quantities, with which a drink is created using our beverage formulator. The consumer then tastes the drink and assesses if it correctly matches what they requested. This will be experiment 2. To achieve this, we must first learn how people's perceptions match to ingredients. Consumer's will taste orange drinks in which ingredients quantities differ and we ask them to describe how intense they perceive its flavour attributes. This will be experiment 1.
In short::
• In experiment 1, we learn how intense consumers perceive flavour attributes of orange drinks for a given set of ingredients quantities.
• In experiment 2, we test if we can choose quantities of ingredients that correctly match consumer's preferences for the same flavour attributes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Research Workshop II on Preference Marketplace 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Following our first workshop with the postgraduate students, we have conducted second workshops with general public. The research method was designed to develop new food and beverage products placing the consumers as co-creator. Food and beverage product consumers are not only students, we increased the variety of consumers group including age range, variant age groups and family members. We used the paper-based prototypes and activities to introduce the preference marketplace and a real food product with the collaboration of our industry partner was used. Participants provided very useful feedback and some weak points of the tool. These results very useful for us to improve our platform and continue to development. This workshop was organised by Harris Makatsoris research group at Brunel University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Workshop_Series_Towards_Preference_Marketplace_Development/4743583
 
Description Research Workshop on Preference Marketplace 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Preference marketplace is an unusual consumer engagement tool. Therefore, we introduced the method to postgraduate students in order to collect their preferences and feedback with making paper based activities. Common user engagement tools are dominated with surveys and questionnaires. Here, we develop a game which is inspired by stock markets that participants can buy and sell product features and ideas with using virtual currency to improve their profit. This can provide better and long term customer engagement. 10 international postgraduate students attended. The workshop duration was 2 hours. At the end of the workshop, we asked to participants to fill a questionnaire to understand that they like or not the new consumer engagement tool. Their feedback was very positive and also they asked many questions about the tool to understand it better. This workshop was organised by Harris Makatsoris research group at Brunel University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Workshop_Series_Towards_Preference_Marketplace_Development/4743583
 
Description Science has no Borders - Unwrapped! 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Paris Selinas, the RCA and Open Kitchen RA participated in 'Science has no Borders - Unwrapped!' held at UCL. Roll up your sleeves, explore, & meet others curious/interested in ways to understand ourselves & our environment.

Interested in ways to improve our environment, understand technology better, demystify medical research? Then join us for an evening of hands-on exploration and inspiring conversations! You'll not only get a feel for the kind of events, opportunities, and people involved in such endeavours, but you'll also take part in shaping the development of upcoming activities.

We will start the evening with a series of short inspiring talks and brief introduction to our project and members of the community. We will then open the evening so you can roll-up your sleeves and join several hands-on 'workstations' in our interactive exhibition Touch|Play|Learn showcasing activities that we have ongoing including:

The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science workstation with DIY kits for environmental monitoring (e.g DIY aerial mapping, spectrometry, near infrared photography)
The DITOs workstations with kits from our partners incl. the Waag Society, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (CRI), MediaLab Prado, and BIOSCOPE (e.g. DIY PCR machine, DIYBio starter kits, etc.)
The Kesnikova Institute workstation showcasing DIY kits incl. DIY microscope & sound-activated badges
Sensory experience workstation hosted by researchers at Royal College of Art
The Ignite Futures! workstation to touch, play, and learn with their science busking trunk!
or try our sandboxes: Arduino & BBC micro:bit kits and Squishy Circuits playground and much more!
This event is aimed at inspiring ideas and getting interests connected. We want to know what science questions, topics, or community issues you would be like to explore or work towards addressing. Your topics will form a part of our discussion table - they will be explored, linked to other efforts, and will help spawn new events.

Doors open 18:15. Children aged 0-100+ welcome! This event is wheelchair accessible.

What: Unwrapping Science has no Borders! 2 short inspirational presentations, hands-on DIY science workstations, food, tea/coffee, and biscuits [food allergies? let us know in advance!]

Where: University College London, Chadwick Building - G04 - [map] enter UCL via Gower St, turn right and follow the ShnB (Science has no Borders) signs
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.eventbrite.com/e/science-has-no-borders-unwrapped-tickets-27375588121#