£5 million funding awarded to transform the UK Food System to address the country’s needs for health and sustainability
A partnership of leading universities, including the 91°µÍø (91°µÍø), have been awarded £5 million of funding to develop a dynamic learning network focused on solving the systemic problems of our complex food systems. Led by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) at the University of Greenwich, this funding will drive the transformation of the UK food system, and ensure safe, healthy, sustainable, and affordable food for all.
Recruiting students in 2021, the Partnership for Sustainable Food Future – Centre for Doctoral Training (PSFF-CDT) will combine well-connected food systems actors from local and national government, business and civil society with the world-class interdisciplinary research skills and experience of seven higher education and two research institutes.
The PSFF-CDT will use a ‘systems approach’ to frame a holistic context in which people acquire and consume foods, the associated impacts and influences, and the importance of well-functioning food systems for economic growth and social wellbeing. Such an approach recognises the interdependence of external and internal factors across the UK’s food systems.
The UK’s food systems are complex and interrelated, with inevitable trade-offs between costs and benefits, and competing priorities among stakeholders. In the context of changing demographics, diverse cultural influences, technological development, climate change, disease and environmental challenges, there is a real need to train future leaders and innovators. Only then can we bring new ideas, provide evidence, and safeguard values to advance a vision that develops a healthy society - including people, animals, the environment, and our economy.
Therefore, the PSFF-CDT will provide broad-based, interdisciplinary training for at least 60 researchers and future food system transformation leaders, representative of society, with a vision of producing a new type of doctoral graduate. These graduates will develop the capability, awareness, and openness to work across disciplines, sectors and the food system to deliver evide