View our new film to discover how our partnerships with industry and other research institutes is delivering better diets and health.
News stories about poor diets, the associated health issues and the resulting pressures on our national health care systems are never far from the headlines. Climate change and the impacts this is having and will continue to have on our weather systems, soils, food production and human health is also a major challenge.
Our focus within the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH) is to support effective multi-disciplinary collaborations, both among researchers and academics across the full breadth of the University, as well as with external organisations, to explore, innovate and educate in the overlapping areas of food, nutrition and health.
We are in our third year of operation and in that time we have achieved a lot. For example, we have many collaborative projects with industry and academic partners tackling challenges from exploring children’s relationship with food, cardiovascular diseases and products with saturated fat to improving technology adaption by farmers to help advance the efficiency and effectiveness of food production.
However, the societal challenges in food, nutrition and health remain huge and we must do more. It is these challenges which we must all work together to address – systemic challenges that require the application of science, skills and industry experience from across many different disciplines in order to fully understand and develop effective interventions.
One key focus for the Institute is to support the University’s engagement with EIT Food, a European initiative to make Europe’s food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted. The University has been an active partner in EIT Food since its inception.
Critically the Institute’s role is to generate significant added value by supporting and facilitating opportunities for the identification, maximising and synergising the strengths that exist in different areas of the University and linking this expertise with industry.
We’re very keen to work with others who share our ambition to explore how improvements in food production, processing and nutrition can help secure our future and deliver better diets and health. Our Partnership Managers provide an effective route into the University for anyone interested in accessing our research and I encourage anyone with an interest to get in touch. The most important thing is to start a conversation.