Collaborations
Cambridge Global Food Security members are embedded within 26 departments and institutes of the University, from Plant Sciences and Engineering to Land Economy and Development Studies. Being part of this larger University ecosystem extends our reach, providing great convening power and capacity for influence.
Where interests collide, we connect with the interdisciplinary networks of several of the University's other Interdisciplinary Research Centres and Strategic Research Initiatives, including Infectious Diseases, Public Health, Public Policy, Cambridge Conservation Initiative, Energy, and Big Data. We also work closely with the CambPlants Hub. Some of our members can be found on within the Global Public Health sphere.
We connect with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's Natural Capital Leaders Platform, contributing academic expertise to collaborations with food and agricultural sector companies wishing to better understand and manage their dependencies and impacts on natural capital.
Our links with Cambridge's Centre for Science and Policy enable us to connect with policy-makers, to contribute our expertise and evidence to tackling the policy challenges facing our world today.
Partnerships
Initiative members are involved in a huge variety of collaborative research projects. Partnerships beyond the University of Cambridge include:
The University has partnered with the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), to create a new Crop Science Centre, focused on translating the University’s strong fundamental plant research into new, sustainable approaches for farmers, processors, and consumers. Through exchanges, training, and research collaboration with national and international partners, the Centre will generate agricultural solutions to help feed the world’s growing population in the long term.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2016 with India's Department of Biotechnology to establish a joint UK-India crop science programme that will tackle food security challenges. This will promote collaborative research, knowledge exchange and capacity building for resilience in food security. The consortium of British research institutions, led by the University of Cambridge, includes the John Innes Centre, the University of East Anglia, Rothamsted Research, and NIAB.
The University is a founding partner of EIT Food, established in 2017 with the aim of putting Europe at the centre of a global revolution in food innovation and production. Involving education programmes, translation of research into practice, and support of entrepreneurship, it aims to engage consumers as it works to improve nutrition and make the food system more resource-efficient, secure, transparent and trusted. EIT Food is a consortium of 55 partners from leading businesses, research centres and universities across 13 European countries.
As a member of Agri-TechE, the UK's only regional agri-tech cluster organisation, we are part of a large network of leading research institutes, grower groups, farmers, technology companies and investors based in the East of England. Providing access to innovative companies, industry knowledge and opportunities for research collaborations, Agri-TechE helps us accelerate transfer of knowledge from lab to field.
We collaborate with NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health, an interdisciplinary think-tank, training academy and knowledge network anchored in Cambridge, through the TIGR2ESS programme.