Food and the Public Good

26 November 2012

Symposium

Brighton-Sussex Food Research Network

On November 26th 2012, SLRG researchers Dr Rebecca White and Rachael Durrant at SPRU (Sussex) hosted a one-day symposium under the title ‘Food and the Public Good’. The impetus for the symposium at the University of Sussex came from their experiences in building a food research network, aka the Brighton-Sussex Food Research Network (BSFRN), which they embarked on in January 2012.

When they set out to build the network, their aims were twofold. First, they wanted to know what was going on around food related research at Sussex and Brighton Universities (they both research within the field of food technology and policy). And second, they wondered whether university-civil society relationships in the city were being exploited to their full potential (their research specifically looks into the work of community-based and non-profit food initiatives). Hence, over the past eleven months they collated a list of academics doing research on related issues at Sussex and Brighton universities and held informal meetings each term to facilitate getting to know each other. Because food touches so many aspects of life, society and the environment, they connected with academics from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds.

What they were hoping for was that the symposium would give a boost to the network, making it visible and accessible to people from other disciplines not yet represented, as well as to local civil society organisations. They also hoped that connections might develop within and between the universities and thereby enable more interdisciplinary research projects to be launched in the future. The symposium was a great success with respect to these aims, as demonstrated by some very encouraging feedback from participants. Moreover, when asked about the frequency with which they would like to see the same sort of event happen again in the future, half of the participants said that they would like it to happen every year, and the other half said they would like it to happen more than once a year. Some other encouraging comments that participants wrote in their evaluation forms in response to the question, ‘how was the event of benefit to you and/or your research’ include the following:

“Broad perspective on food and its influence on society will inform application of my research”

“Opened the door to new approaches and new subjects of interest”

“Feeling of critical mass of academics and some practitioners in this vital issue. Encouraged that we may be able to build from this energy to more Brighton and Sussex Uni and civil society food-related study and action”

The symposium was funded by the University of Sussex’s Researcher Led Initiative (RLI) Fund.

For more information on this symposium click here.