Amélie Boutinot, associate professor at EM Strasbourg and deputy director of HuManiS Research Center, initiated the VITALE project—Vin (wine), Inclusion, TAble, and Lieux d’Excellence (places of excellence). The project has just received an IDEX grant. To learn more about this initiative, we asked the project lead a series of questions.
Why was this project launched?
This project grew out of a shared observation: places of excellence in gastronomy and winemaking (restaurants, wineries, and so on) face a tension that seems inherent to their place within the creative and cultural industries. They pursue excellence and distinction while facing increasingly strong societal expectations to be more open and inclusive, both toward the public and toward employees. The creative and cultural industries are based on the creation and transmission of goods with significant symbolic, heritage, and artistic value. They are often associated with elitist codes and economic, cultural, or symbolic barriers that limit access. VITALE grew out of this observation and a desire to understand how these places can evolve without betraying what makes them places of excellence.
What is the project’s main objective?
The main objective is to identify and understand the organizational mechanisms through which these places can become more inclusive. By “organizational mechanisms,” we mean very practical actions, such as accessibility choices, internal coordination methods, and partnerships with associations or specialized organizations. We are working on two dimensions of inclusion: the inclusion of diverse members of the public (particularly disadvantaged people and people with disabilities) and the inclusion of employees with disabilities. The project is fully aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 8 on decent work, SDG 10 on reducing inequalities, and SDG 12 on responsible consumption. It also aligns with the work of the HuManiS Research Center and with EM Strasbourg’s strategic pillars and values, strengthening our shared commitment to sustainable transitions.
Can you introduce the project members and explain how the team came together?
Our team came together very naturally within the HuManiS Research Center, bringing together a range of skills and expertise. In particular, the team draws on the themes explored by the MAESTRO cluster and the Wine & Tourism corporate chair at EM Strasbourg.
Five of us are involved. The core team consists of three people: Sophie Michel, a full professor of management, who has worked for a long time on gastronomy and agrifood models; Coralie Haller, whose expertise focuses specifically on winemaking and who knows the field very well in the Grand Est region; and me, providing scientific coordination and expertise in the creative and cultural industries.
We then brought in two colleagues from the area of research "Marketing & Information Systems": Daria Plotkina, for her expertise in quantitative methods and consumers in the creative industries, and Jessie Pallud, a full professor whose research focuses on visitor experiences with technology in the cultural industries. What is interesting is that the project genuinely bridges two of our research center’s areas of research, giving it strong cross-disciplinary coherence.
Can you briefly describe each person’s role?
I will have the pleasure of scientifically coordinating the project and contributing a theoretical perspective on the creative and cultural industries. Sophie Michel is leading the gastronomy component, using qualitative methods to analyze inclusion mechanisms in this sector. Coralie Haller is leading the winemaking component, drawing on fieldwork already underway in the Grand Est region. Daria Plotkina and Jessie Pallud are leading the project’s quantitative component, particularly the development and administration of questionnaires to assess public perceptions of perceived accessibility, legitimacy, and the quality of the experience.
How will the funding received through IDEX be used?
The funding is primarily intended to cover operating expenses, which aligns well with our needs. Specifically, it will cover travel and accommodations for field data collection (particularly at fine-dining restaurants and wineries), interview transcription, the distribution and administration of quantitative questionnaires, respondent compensation, and temporary staff to collect and clean the data. Above all, this funding will help us secure and strengthen initiatives that are already well underway, making it possible to achieve our objectives within the planned 24-month timeframe.
What tangible benefits will this project bring?
The benefits will be both scientific and practical. In academic research, the project will contribute to three potential areas of study (organizational inclusion, the creative and cultural industries, and the transformation of places of excellence) and enable us to continue collecting data for future publications. Beyond that, VITALE will help us develop a solid proof of concept as we prepare a new grant proposal. For practitioners, we will organize opportunities for discussion and produce resources to share our findings with professionals in fine dining and winemaking, offering practical guidance on how to advance inclusion. Examples include restaurants such as Café Joyeux, La Belle Étincelle, and Le Reflet, which already combine excellence with the employment of people with disabilities, and wineries such as Ruhlmann-Schutz and Jean Sipp in the Grand Est region, which are developing inclusive experiences for people with visual impairments.
What methods or approaches will you use to carry out the project?
We will use a mixed-methods approach, which is a defining feature of the project. A qualitative component will help us identify organizational inclusion mechanisms, the conditions for implementing them, and the tensions they generate within the places studied. This will involve semistructured interviews, field observations, and archival data collection to complement the findings. A quantitative component will build on the qualitative work to assess how the public responds to these inclusion initiatives: How do people perceive the accessibility of these places? Do they consider them legitimate? Do they see excellence and inclusion as compatible? This dialogue between the two components is central to our approach. Our methodology also emphasizes local roots: we are working nationally on gastronomy to capture leading initiatives, and across the Grand Est region on winemaking, building on HuManiS’s existing connections with regional stakeholders.
What results do you expect in the short, medium, and long term?
In the short term—that is, within the project’s 24-month timeframe—we expect to produce tangible deliverables: presentations at national and international conferences, at least one article submitted to an international journal, a typology of organizational inclusion mechanisms in gastronomy and winemaking venues, consolidated qualitative and quantitative data, and resources for practitioners. In the medium term, VITALE will enable us to refocus and strengthen an earlier project, LUMOS, a funding application submitted to the French National Research Agency in 2026. The feedback we received invited us to refine its theoretical and empirical scope. In a sense, VITALE is the proof of concept we need to move forward on a stronger foundation. We would like to once again express our sincere thanks to the University of Strasbourg for supporting this project, which means a great deal to us!
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions!