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The Institute For Global Food Security

  • Home
  • Research
    • Nutrition and Preventive Medicine
    • Enabling Technologies, Data and Data Innovation
    • Food Integrity
    • Agriculture & Environmental Resilience
    • Research Impact
    • Research Culture
    • Research Environment
    • Recent Research Outputs
    • Postgraduate Research
  • Partnerships (including EIT Food)
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    • News Archive 2019
    • News Archive 2018
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    • News Archive 2016
  • Facilities (including ASSET lab)
  • Events
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  • Home
  • Research
    • Nutrition and Preventive Medicine
    • Enabling Technologies, Data and Data Innovation
    • Food Integrity
    • Agriculture & Environmental Resilience
    • Research Impact
    • Research Culture
    • Research Environment
    • Recent Research Outputs
    • Postgraduate Research
  • Partnerships (including EIT Food)
  • Contact
    • Researchers and PhD supervisors
    • Key Contacts
    • Office Staff
    • Laboratory Staff
  • News
    • Covid-19 and Food podcast
    • News Archive 2020
    • News Archive 2019
    • News Archive 2018
    • News Archive 2017
    • News Archive 2016
  • Facilities (including ASSET lab)
  • Events
  • Media
  • Our twitter
  • Our facebook
  • Our linkedin
In This Section
  • Nutrition and Preventive Medicine
  • Enabling Technologies, Data and Data Innovation
  • Food Integrity
  • Agriculture & Environmental Resilience
  • Research Impact
  • Research Culture
  • Research Environment
  • Recent Research Outputs
  • Postgraduate Research

  • Home
  • Research

Research

Research
World leader in food integrity

OUR RESEARCH VISION: A world where everyone can access safe, nutritious and sustainable food

The 2019 EAT-Lancet report highlighted food as one of the greatest health and environmental challenges of the 21st century. Soaring population growth, climate change and the double burden of under-nutrition/obesity are complex, global challenges that require a fundamental rethinking of how we farm and produce food. Healthy populations and a healthy natural environment are at the core of this challenge. Our distinctive strengths map onto the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals and fit with the global focus on the importance of food for health – that of humans, animals and the planet. 

We promote cross-fertilisation of the latest science, both within the university and with partners around the world. We work closely with stakeholders across industry, government and NGOs. This interdisciplinary approach drives impact at local, national and international levels. Key examples include the Elliott Review on UK food systems after the horsemeat scandal and determining the impact of intensive animal farming on climate change and land use. In 2021, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) designated IGFS an IAEA Collaborating Centre, recognising its global reach in food safety, authenticity and traceability.

 

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Read about our research impact

Research Themes

Meat plant
Food Integrity

This team investigates chemical contaminants in food and animal feed; food microbiology; fraud detection; food-systems traceability and transparency. Large-scale funding from H2020 and BBSRC, among others, has enabled cutting-edge technologies including molecular spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Find out more

Healthy Food
Nutrition and Preventive Medicine

Plant-based diets, diet quality, biomarkers and cardio-metabolic health fall under this theme. Spanning the School of Biological Sciences & School of Medicine, Dentistry & Biomedical Sciences gives this team pathways to healthcare, driving impact. Partners include the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Find out more

Tractor in a field with a wind turbine in the background
Agriculture & Environmental Resilience

This team explores animal production, health and welfare plus the environmental impact of food systems. Key areas include mitigating GHG emissions from livestock and monitoring agricultural influences on ecosystem resilience. The Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) is a major partner under the Queen's-AFBI Alliance. Find out more

Scientist in a testing lab
Enabling Technologies, Data and Data Innovation

AI, machine learning and precision sensor technologies sit alongside expertise in nucleic acid, protein and metabolome-based metaomic technologies in this cross-cutting theme. It links many areas of IGFS research and loops in expertise from other impact-driven areas of the university eg. the ECIT Institute. Find out more

FIND OUT MORE

Read about our Research Culture          Read about our Research Environment

What else goes on in our Institute?

See how our researchers contribute to the university, economy and wider society

Partnerships

Partnership is at the heart of IGFS and ranges from KTPs and DTPs with industry partners to participation in EIT Food – an EU knowledge innovation centre which groups together academics, entrepreneurs and business to accelerate the research-to-market pipeline. Academically, our researchers collaborate locally with AFBI under a Strategic Alliance and with leading centres around the world including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and WUR (Netherlands). Pictured: IGFS staff with agrifood business leaders Find out more


Early-Research Culture

Early-career researchers play a central role in IGFS with 10 out of 70.8 FTE academic staff now ECRs. IGFS is also home to a thriving post-graduate and post-doctoral community. PhD numbers have tripled in the past seven years and PG students can access the Queen's Graduate School while Post-Docs are encouraged to participate in a lively MHLS Faculty Post-Doc Society. Read more about our research culture and environment.


Tim Smit
Events & Public Engagement

We host a wide range of events, from PGR seminars to large, public lectures with headlining speakers such as Sir Tim Smit of the Eden Project (pictured). We have partnered on high-level stakeholder events with the UK House of Lords; the Oxford Farming Conference; the Coalition of Aid Agencies in NI and regularly participate in outreach activities such as the Balmoral Royal Agricultural Show; Soapbox Science; and the NI Science Festival. Find out more


Academics
Equality & Diversity

The School of Biological Sciences, in which IGFS is anchored, has renewed its Athena Swan Gold Award - a third, consecutive Gold. The School holds one of only two departmental Gold awards at Queen's – and one of only 12 in the UK. This puts it in the Top 1.5% for gender equality in UK universities. The Swan team regularly hosts activities to encourage inclusion, including a recent address by Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell from Oxford University (pictured, r-l, with IGFS & SBS Swan champion, Dr Edel Hyland). Find out more


City Hall Belfast
Policy Engagement

IGFS is integral to a number of aspects of the Belfast Region City Deal including a planned Global Innovation Institute (£60M investment, 2021-36), providing an unparalled opportunity to apply digital technologies across health, food security and environmental sustainability. We are also involved in a number of public-private initiatives including the ‘NI Diamond’ and the creation of an all-Ireland agrifood-research hub. Find out more


John Bell EU Commission
Conferences

We run and partner on a number of symposia but are best-known for the ASSET Summit on Global Food Integrity, the most recent of which attracted over 600 delegates and thought leaders from 47 countries including keynote speaker Dr John Bell, Head of Bioeconomy at the European Commission (pictured). We recently hosted the first International Endocrine Disruptor Conference on the island of Ireland. 


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Latest research publications
UK #1
for Agriculture, Forestry & Food *Guardian UK Universities Guide 2022
UK #1
for both Food Science & Agriculture: Research Ranking *Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2021
UK #1
for both Food Science & Agriculture *Complete University Guide 2022
Global Top 200

for Food Science

*Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2021
Global Top 200

for Agriculture

*QS World Rankings 2022
UN SDGs
SDG Life Below Water: No 6 (out of 379 institutions)
SDG Life on Land: No 11 (out of 402 institutions)                                          *Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2021
Research
  • The Institute for Global Food Security
  • Nutrition and Preventive Medicine
  • Enabling Technologies, Data and Data Innovation
  • Food Integrity
  • Agriculture & Environmental Resilience
  • Research Impact
  • Research Culture
  • Research Environment
  • Recent Research Outputs
  • Postgraduate Research
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Contact Us

Institute for Global Food Security
Biological Sciences Building
19 Chlorine Gardens, Belfast
BT9 5DL

Email: IGFS@qub.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)28 9097 6514

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