Professor Tim Lang, Rebecca Wells and Raquel Ajates Gonzalez from the Centre for Food Policy at City University London will be giving the lecture (live from City University London) “Drivers and Influencers: What shapes the food system?”. The food system can be seen as a dynamic interacting and contested arena in which drivers and actors shape and pressurise who eats what, when, why and how, and what effects and outcomes they have or try to achieve. Drivers shape systems but also face resistance. Whatever our model of the food system (engineering, biomedical, agricultural, economic or social, etc.), we have to recognise that some forces dominate the world of food. If we want to understand the dynamics of the total food system, we need to map all drivers not just some; so precisely what are these drivers and why do we need to consider them?