Training Future Actors in the Food System: A new collaborative cross-institutional, interdisciplinary training programme for students

Reed, Kelly; Reed, Kelly; Collier, Rosemary; White, Rebecca; Wells, Rebecca; Ingram, John; Borrelli, Rosina; Haesler, Barbara; Caraher, Martin; Lang, Tim; Arnall, Alex; Ajates Gonzalez, Raquel; Pope, Harley; Blake, Lauren; Sykes, Roger

Abstract

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).

Citation

Reed, K., Reed, K., Collier, R., White, R., Wells, R., Ingram, J., Borrelli, R., Haesler, B., Caraher, M., Lang, T., Arnall, A., Ajates Gonzalez, R., Pope, H., Blake, L., & Sykes, R. (in press). Training Future Actors in the Food System: A new collaborative cross-institutional, interdisciplinary training programme for students. Exchange, 4(2), 201-218. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v4i2.161

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 29, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Apr 30, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 16, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 16, 2021
• Journal: Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal
• Print ISSN: 0166-2740
• Electronic ISSN: 1572-543X
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 201-218
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v4i2.161
• Public URL: https://rvc-repository.worktribe.com/output/1443698