Training future actors in the food system: a new collaborative cross-institutional, interdisciplinary training programme for students

Reed, K., Collier, R., White, R., Wells, R., Ingram, J., Borelli, R., Heasler, B., Caraher, M., Lang, T., Arnall, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6218-5926, Gonzalez, R., Pope, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2936-7052, Blake, L. and Sykes, R. (2017) Training future actors in the food system: a new collaborative cross-institutional, interdisciplinary training programme for students. Exchanges : The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 4 (2). pp. 201-218. ISSN 2053-9665 doi: 10.31273/eirj.v4i2.161

Abstract/Summary

There is an urgent need to train a cohort of professionals who can address and resolve the increasing number of fundamental failings in the global food system. The solutions to these systemic failings go far beyond the production of food, and are embedded within broad political, economic, business, social, cultural and environmental contexts. The challenge of developing efficient, socially acceptable and sustainable food systems that meet the demands of a growing global population can only be tackled through an interdisciplinary systems approach that integrates social, economic and environmental dimensions. The new cross-institutional training programme, IFSTAL (Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning), is designed to improve post-graduate level knowledge and understanding of food systems from a much broader interdisciplinary perspective, which can be applied to students’ own studies. Ultimately, these graduates should be equipped to apply critical interdisciplinary systems thinking in the workplace to understand how problems are connected, their root causes and where critical leverage points might be. This article outlines the programme and presents a review of its first year (2015-2016 academic year).

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/83461
Identification Number/DOI	10.31273/eirj.v4i2.161
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of International Development
Publisher	University of Warwick
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