Food Quality and Health - Sustaining the Future

Demand for food is changing because of population growth, changing diets and increasing affluence. Food production is under increasing pressure as water and other natural resources become scarcer and competition for the use of land rises. Climate change will alter patterns of production and affect the reliability of supply. Adapting to these challenges to ensure the sustainable supply of sufficient, affordable, nutritious and safe food in a rapidly changing world will require a multifaceted and cross-disciplinary approach that reconnects the food chain. The Food Quality & Health ATP will boost the national capacity in the knowledge and skills that underpin food security, ensuring the UK skills base has the appropriate critical mass and specialist research expertise to meet the challenges. The UK food manufacturing sector employs 410,000 people with a further 2.5 million employed in food retail and catering and 531,000 in agricultural and horticultural production. The agri-food sector is therefore vital to UK health and wealth: hence our partnership aims to ensure the industry employs and is led by individuals with a comprehensive understanding of the complex issues of food security that face the whole food chain. The Food Quality & Health ATP brings together leading experts working on the food chain from production to consumption, from academia and industry, focused on delivering high quality and real-world relevant training for the food and production industries. Consultation has revealed the need for a 'without boundaries' approach to training, that facilitates integration of learning from different points in the supply chain by creating a collaborative network to reconnect the fragmented agri-food sector. Our partnership will ensure the training and education of highly qualified individuals capable of leading businesses in the UK food industry on all aspects of sustainable food quality and health, thus addressing key elements of government, consumer and societal concern associated with food security in the UK and beyond. The programme will deliver training at a number of levels to suit the varying demands of the diverse employees in the food industry. At the highest level of training, the Professional Doctorate, a cadre of high calibre individuals will have the potential to enable the UK to consolidate its strength in terms of international competitiveness and employment. These individuals will be trained in conducting self-directed advanced research that will extend the capacity for innovation and thought leadership of the UK food industry. Training modules will be developed that can be taken as standalone CPD courses and, if desired progressively built towards Postgraduate Certificates/Diplomas or Masters. In each case the training will be designed to accelerate the development of early to mid career professionals and support the industry in developing its skills base. Our vision is a learning framework with a flexible structure that includes industry led elements of CPD, taught modules, active research, and learning in the workplace to deliver training. The Professional Doctorate is an innovative 'science in business' research degree for the food and production industries that brings together modular taught components with a portfolio of industry research and professional practice. The modules will be delivered by experts from across the core delivery partners (University of Reading, University of Birmingham, Rothamsted Research and Leatherhead Food Research) with specialist contributions from a range of Associate Partners. Where participants want to work towards formal Masters level qualifications, these will be accredited via the core Universities. This new approach to flexible and collaborative training will ensure that the expertise and research excellence is best applied to the needs of participants and will synergise connections across the food chain to encourage knowledge exchange.