Digital Futures researchers and faculty members Angela Fontan and Karl H. Johansson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology), together with Patricia Eustachio Colombo and Rosemary Green (The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), have received the 2026 IFAC Foundation Kwon Award for their paper “A Systems Perspective on Promoting Sustainable Food Systems”. The award was presented during the IFAC World Congress 2026 in Busan, South Korea, held 23–28 August.
Fontan is an Assistant Professor and a WASP Fellow and Johansson is a Professor at the Division of Decision and Control Systems at KTH. Johansson is also Director of Digital Futures and WASP Faculty.
Published in Annual Reviews in Control in 2025, the paper takes a systems perspective on the challenges of creating more sustainable food systems. It highlights the complex interconnections between different parts of the food system and explores how systems thinking and control can contribute to addressing sustainability challenges.
“We are very honoured to receive the IFAC Foundation Kwon Award. Sustainable food systems are a complex societal challenge, and we hope that a systems perspective can help bring together different disciplines and approaches to support meaningful change,” says Angela Fontan.
The IFAC Foundation Kwon Award recognises outstanding contributions demonstrating how automatic control science and technology can advance sustainable development. The award considers the technical quality of the work, the significance and potential impact of the sustainability challenge addressed, the relevance of the control solution, and the future development of the proposed methodology.
The authors received a certificate and a €2,000 prize at the World Congress. As part of the award, they were also invited to present their work in a semi-plenary talk at the congress.
The award is made in honour of Professor Wook Hyun Kwon, whose initial donation helped establish the IFAC Foundation. The Foundation seeks to promote awareness of the social relevance of automatic control and its contribution to sustainable development, including challenges related to energy, water, resources, agriculture, pollution and climate.
Congratulations to Angela Fontan, Karl H. Johansson, Patricia Eustachio Colombo and Rosemary Green on this well-deserved recognition!
