VK, is the Denmark’s 5th largest municipality with 115.000 inhabitants, and Vejle is the main city with appr. 57.000 inhabitants. As a local government VK is responsible for the urban development of Vejle, including physical planning, infrastructure and utilities, education and care and local business and economic development. VK has appr. 8.500 employees. VK is a pilot city in VH2020 and will be responsible for developing and implementing CRFS activities locally. VK will coordinate the regional focus group with research-, business- and civic stakeholders to develop and drive the lab activities and ensuring engagement, impact and learning at pilot level. Since 2015 the overarching development paradigm in VK has been resilience, and all service- and policy areas have been assessed and re-framed within the methodological framework of city resilience. Vejle is one the first 100 Resilient Cities global network initiative, launched and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. VK is highly experienced project partner and a mature organisation in the area of developing and implementing city/ systemic resilience, including collaborative and innovative approaches to urban leadership and participatory governance. VK and its regional vicinity is the most intensive food ecosystem in Denmark and has the highest relative employment within the food sector. Furthermore, it is characteristic of this regional food ecosystem that the whole value chain is substantially present, e.g. agriculture, food processing, process equipment and packaging, logstics and food service. This is a rather “complete food ecosystem” comprised in a relatively small geographic area. This has for long spurred a rather systemic conception and approach to local development activities and collaboration within the food ecosystem. Food being the regional business specialization means that VK is deeply vested and in 2018 the Food Innovation House was opened as a triple helix collaboration with VK as a partner. We run an innovation lab called “Cultinary Insitute by Vejle Business” for hands-on development and collaboration with local companies and other stakeholders like municipal institutions and cultural entities. The Culinary Institute is placed inside Food Innovation House which holds several lab facilities including urban growing systems, test supermarket, sensory lab, industry kitchen and baking facilities and test restaurant. The Culinary Institute is the tangible frame around the various development activities aimed at both local businesses and other stakeholders. VK also designs, runs and facilitates a range of development and innovation activities with relation to CRFS, notably within resilience, circular economy, food culture, value chain collaboration and food tourism.
