Newsletter: November 2023 

Have you recently published work on a food-related theme, completed a project, or been awarded a grant? Are you planning an event that colleagues should know about, or have you heard of such events elsewhere? Are you aware of opportunities or resources that might be of interest to other network members? Please email Exeter Food for inclusion in the next Exeter Food newsletter.

NEWS

Invite your students to Exeter Food!

Please invite students on your courses or modules with an interest in food to sign up to the Exeter Food research network. The benefits of joining include receiving updates on food-related research, events, resources, and opportunities. Sign up to the network through the Exeter Food registration form. 

EVENTS

Personalised Nutrition for Metabolic Health- an Exeter Food talk by Dr Sarah Berry

Tuesday 28^th November- 13:30-14:30 on Zoom 

Dr Sarah Berry is a Nutritional Sciences expert at King's College London and Chief Scientist at ZOE Ltd. In her talk she will discuss the importance of personalised nutrition and the limitations of one-size-fits-all dietary advice. She will stress the importance of extensive, accurate data that integrates various factors like diet, lifestyle, physiology, genetics, and metagenomics. Her talk will focus on two main points: 1) why personalised nutrition makes sense, and 2) the latest progress in these areas, spotlighting the ZOE PREDICT program, which uses AI to predict individuals respond to food. For more information, visit the University's Events webpage.

Attend the talk via this Zoom link.

Culinary Mind Conversation with Zsuzsa Gille- the Materiality of Food

Wednesday 15^th November 3pm via Zoom

Culinary Mind is a research centre and academic network based at the University of Milan. Their focus is on contributing to food discussions from a philosophical standpoint. This event is one of their Fall 2023 seminar series. Sign up through this registration form. 

Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity (UBVO), University of Oxford seminar series

The University of Oxford's UBVO is hosting a 2023 Michaelmas Term seminar series in collaboration with UBVO Australia and the UK, organised by Zofia Boni and Stanley Ulijaszek. These seminars are on Thursdays from 4 to 5 pm via Zoom (Meeting ID: 890 1052 1271, Passcode: 069750) Everyone is welcome to attend, more details can be found below:

16th November - Tayla von Ash Brown University  ‘Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities for childhood obesity’

23rd November - Kàtia Lurbe i Puerto Sciences Po, Paris  ‘The stakes around bariatric surgery in France: A critical sociology of the medical community and of public policies’

30th November - Ilya Gutin University of Texas at Austin  ‘When the measure becomes the metric: making sense of the body mass index in research and practice’

Achieving Circularity in Local and Regional Food Systems Development

Thursday 16^th November 3pm- 4:30pm via Zoom

This workshop is part of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development (JAFSCD) Wicked Problems in the Food Systems series and will look to discuss:

1.        A definition of circularity in local food system development? 

2.      Key issues in localising and regionalising food systems circularity. Focusing on justice and well-being while minimising waste and preserving resources.

3.      How can these goals be achieved together through circularity?

It comes ahead of their call for papers titled “Community-Based Circular Food Systems: Meeting current and future food needs through local and regional food systems development”. More information here . Register to attend via the workshop registration form. 

'Long Lunch' Seminar 'Beyond the blame game: reframing poverty and obesity'

Thursday 16^th November 12-2pm via Zoom

The Centre for Research in Public Health and Community Care (CRIPACC), University of Hertfordshire are hosting this seminar which will tackle questions such as:

How are our food habits and bodies shaped by psychology, society and the economy, what can social scientists learn from people who have experience of being overweight, why do discourses of blame and shame persist around obesity, and how can we resist them and what are the barriers to reframing poverty and obesity as social problems?

The event ends with a Q&A and discussion session. Find out more information and register on the event's website.

Symposium on Co-Productive Practices for Effective Environmental Governance

Thursday 16^th November 9:30am-4pm - Reed Hall, Upper Lounge

Co-productive and participatory practices are increasingly being used by academics working collaboratively with partners to address issues of environment and sustainability. This symposium aims to address the challenge of co-production and provide opportunities to address best practices. It will also focus on emerging issues including conducting co-productive and participatory research in a time of knowledge contestations. Tickets are available on the event's EventBrite page.

School Food Systems in the US and Canada

Friday 17^th November 3:30-4:30pm

This webinar looks at perspectives on School Food Systems in primary and secondary school settings in the US and Canada. It is hosted by the Lake Superior Living Labs Network (LSLLN) and is free and open to the public. It will examine four different projects and conclude with a panel discussion. Please register to attend via the event's registration form.

CRPR Seminar Series

The Centre for Rural Policy Research (CRPR) are delighted to invite you to our Seminar Series. The seminars will be run as hybrid events however we would encourage in-person attendance in the Byrne House Boardroom wherever possible. To register your interest or for further information please contact Melissa Hawkins on CRPR@Exeter.ac.uk.

Wednesday 22nd November 10:45am-12:15pm - Rosie McVey (University of Exeter). Learning From The Herd?: Ethics and Intercorporeality in Equine-Assisted Therapy. Byrne House Boardroom or via Teams link. Full details on the University's Events page.

Wednesday 13th December 10:45am-12:15pm - Becky Willson (Farm Carbon Toolkit). Managing carbon on-farm. Byrne House Boardroom or via Teams link. Full details on the University's Events page.

The Big Exeter Feast

Thursday 23^rd November, 10am– 3.30pm at Exeter Community Centre, St David’s Hill.

The event will explore how to make food in Exeter more accessible, affordable, healthier, sustainable and celebrate how the VCSE sector in Exeter is responding to food systems change.

The event features a range of speakers, panel discussions, stalls, displays and more. It will provide opportunities for networking and a simple locally-sourced lunch is included. It’s free to attend but booking is requested via EventBrite.

The Big Exeter Feast pre-conference

The programme includes 11 FREE events happening between 13 – 22 November and showcases the impact of Exeter’s VCSE sector on this most basic of human need: food. Topics in the pre-conference programme include how to increase locally sourced food in the City, a farm tour, a visit to an urban community garden, and community actions against food insecurity and food poverty. Events can be booked via EventBrite.

Collaborations between Food Researchers and the Arts: a creative appetiser

Tuesday 12^th December 3-5pm via Teams.

Interested in engaging with the arts in your research on food? Exeter Food—in collaboration with Arts & Culture (University of Exeter), Creative Arc, and the Co-Production Oracle—is organising a workshop for Exeter Food network members who would like to work more closely with creative practitioners (from any artform) but are not sure where to start. We will share case studies to provide inspiration; introduce you to useful people at the University who can help shape your ideas; talk about pathways to funding; and provide a short workshop to give you a taste of this work in practice.

This is the first of two sessions; it will be followed by a half-day in-person workshop at a date to be determined. Please sign-up via the event's registration form to attend.

Royal Society conference on "Advancing the Science of Human Nutrition"

The Royal Society is organising a "Transforming our Future Conference" focused on "Advancing the Science of Human Nutrition." This conference is scheduled for December 4th and will delve into how cutting-edge research in both industry and academia is contributing to our knowledge of human nutrition. Find more details and register for online attendance on the Royal Society Nutrition Conference's website.

OPPORTUNITIES

Exeter Food is keen to support members in the development of research proposals. If you have an idea that you would like to explore in a “sandpit” with colleagues and potential partners, or a draft proposal on which you would like feedback from colleagues, please contact the network lead, Harry G West (h.g.west@exeter.ac.uk). 

Innovate UK AgriFood Accelerator

Innovate UK have a training opportunity for people from underrepresented groups with new business ideas relating to AgriFood innovation. The programme will include six training sessions to increase your understanding of the sector, teach about support available when applying for funding, build links with partners and markets and learn how to grow your business.

For more information visit the Innovate UK AgriFood Accelerator webpage. Sign-up via the registration form by Friday 24^th November.

UKRI/NIHR funding opportunity - “Sustainable healthy diets” theme

The UK is legally required to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to combat climate change. A NIHR and UKRI collaboration is seeking to develop interdisciplinary research hubs to focus on improving the health of the UK population by harnessing the benefits of transitioning to net-zero emissions. “Sustainable healthy diets” is one of five key challenges identified and eligible for funding. This includes the relationship between diet changes, greenhouse gas emissions and human health, understanding the health effects associated with low carbon foods and diets, such as nutrition, food waste, cost, and accessibility. 

The deadline for expressions of interest is 14^th November. For more information, please visit the UKRI webpage for this opportunity 

UKRI interdisciplinary research funding to address epidemic threats

UKRI offers a new grant opportunity with £1 million in funding (max award: £100,000) to seed interdisciplinary teams for research on epidemic diseases in humans, animals, and plants. The application deadline has just been announced as 27^th February 2024. More details are accessible on the UKRI webpage for this call, including requirements and the application process.

"Food & Hybridity" - Call for Papers for the 2024 Food Conference in Perugia, Italy.

The Perugia Food Conference at the Umbra Institute, Italy, runs from July 13th to July 16th, 2024, featuring Prof. Heather Paxson from MIT as the keynote speaker. The theme is "Food and Hybridity," Submissions are open for individual papers, full panel proposals, and roundtable discussions. The deadline for submissions is 31st December, please visit the conference website for more information and the submission form.

Farming Innovation Programme – feasibility round 3 –Innovation Funding Service

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), is launching this funding competition to fund feasibility studies in investigating new solutions that will address major on-farm or immediate post farm gate challenges or opportunities. It is part of their Farming Innovation Programme which is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK’s Transforming Food Production (TFP) Challenge. Your project’s total costs must be between£200,000 and £500,000. Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers, or foresters in England. The competition opens on 18th September and closes at 11.00 on 15th November. More information is available on the Innovation Funding Service webpage.

Anthropology of Food Network – student paper award

The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) is inviting submissions for the Student Paper Awards in the Anthropology of Food. These awards were established by the EASA Anthropology of Food network to encourage emerging scholars in conducting anthropological research on food. Masters and early doctoral students in anthropology and related fields who study food are encouraged to submit their papers for consideration.

The deadline for submission is 1^st February, 2024. For more information about eligibility rules and judging criteria, please visit the EASA Student Paper Awards page.

RESOURCES

“Food History: Printed and Manuscript Recipe Books, 1669-1990” Archives Unbound

This Archives Unbound title is now available via the Exeter University library’s Gale Research Complete subscription. The collection is from the Winterthur Museum and Library in Delaware and includes 328 cookbooks and domestic management books. Food History shows the types of foods that were being eaten, different cultural cuisines, and the diversity of foodways. The books and manuscripts in the collection range in date from 1669 to the early to mid-20th century, with the majority centred in the 18th and 19th century.

Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) briefings

POSTnotes are peer reviewed scientific briefings produced for UK parliamentarians, and input from academics is regularly sought by the POST Team. Recent publications include:

Measuring sustainable environment-food system interactions

This POSTnote describes environmental impact metrics for food systems, which are complex networks of decision-makers, natural processes, and human activities.

Child food insecurity and Free School Meals

This POSTnote outlines trends and associated risk outcomes of child food insecurity and provides an overview of Free School Meals initiatives in England (including eligibility and funding). This briefing also evaluates the evidence for the benefits and challenges for Free School Meals and outlines future policy considerations suggested by stakeholders. 

You can subscribe to receive newly published POSTnotes or information about POSTnotes to which you might which to contribute here.