In 2022, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded six new Hubs as part of the Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC) on diet and health. The hubs address shared barriers to innovation across the food and drink sector and aim to reduce the huge impact poor diet has on public health.
From maximising the nutritional value of foods to better understanding what influences dietary choices and the relationship between food and health, these innovation hubs bring together leaders from academia, industry and wider stakeholders.
Each Innovation Hub will build cross-sector collaborative networks to improve the UK’s capacity and capability and deliver world-class innovation around diet and health by supporting strategic, collaborative research and development between businesses and academic researchers together with other users of research, policymakers and wider stakeholders.
The INFORM Hub is an important component of the OIRC initiative. It will connect academia, industry and policymakers to collaboratively pursue shared research priorities in the development of functional foods (foods that contain health-giving bioactives) to improve human health via their impacts on gut microbes.
Our partner hubs comprise:
Start Healthy Stay Healthy (STAR) Hub
Aligning public and planetary health through precision plant-based dietary solutions across the life course. The STAR Hub’s focus is on challenge areas involving polyphenols, fibre and resistant starch, alternative plant protein sources and the improvement of existing or novel plant-based foods.
Biofortification Hub
The Biofortificatin Hub aims to Improve Health and Nutrition through Biofortification and strengthen the UK’s position as a world leader in the research and commercialisation of biofortification – the development of crops, foods, feed and fodder with higher levels of nutrients.
TRanslational Innovation Hub for Population HEalth using Food and Nutrition approaches to enhance Positive Physiology – RIPEN Hub
The RIPEN Hub aims to uncover the complex relationship between food components and human physiology.
Consumer Lab
The Consumer Lab will focus on understanding how we interact with food is central to delivering a healthier and more sustainable diet for all. Recognising the need to study real-world dietary behaviour.
Improved Nutrition Across the Lifecourse
The hub will focus on the role of good nutrition in promoting early-life development, supporting body and brain function and resilience from adolescence into adulthood, and contributing to healthy ageing in later life.