Successful collaborative

working for postgraduate

students in food systems –

lessons learnt

Roger Sykes, Environmental Change Institute,

School of Geography & the Environment

Tuesday 27 September 2016

On the menu today• Food systems thinking is important

• Innovative Food Systems Teaching And Learning

• Lessons learnt:

1. Governance – adding value

2. Human Resources & developing teams

3. Finance & forecasting

4. IT and educational support

5. Marketing and communications

6. Plan the future now

Food systems thinking is important

• Food security exists when all people, at all times, have

physical, economic and social access to sufficient, safe, and

nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food

preferences for an active and healthy life. (UN-FAO World

Food Summit 1996, 2012)

Insufficient calsInsufficient nutrscurrently ~ 1 billion

Sufficient calsInsufficient nutrscurrently ~ 2 billion

Excess cals (incl. some with insufficient nutrs)currently >2.5 billion

Food systems are complex

IFSTAL – goal and rationale

• 3-year HEFCE funded programme (Jan 2015-Sept 2018)

• Voluntary programme outside core teaching

• GOAL: Create a cohort of postgraduates equipped to address

food systems challenges by framing their specialist

understanding gained through their degrees within the broader

social, economic and environmental contexts.

• RATIONALE: Need a workforce trained in concepts and tools

able to implement interventions leading to better food security,

environmental and enterprise outcomes

• Based on understanding of range of food system activities,

outcomes and complexity and equipped with ‘hard’ and ‘soft’

skills

Progress & challenges in year 1

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for students with 341

signed up (at Oxford through Weblearn)

Launch event beamed across all sites

8 lectures beamed across all sites and captured on VLE

2 stakeholder days for workplace, and away day for

students, summer school

Active students’ face-to-face engagement

× Drop-off student engagement in term 2

× Student engagement on the Virtual Learning Environment

× Less engagement with other departments and course

directors

× Engaging PhD students

× Workplace engagement

1. Governance – adding value

Programme Coordination

• PIs + ECs + Workplace Engagement Lead

• Meets every 2 months

Advisory Board

• David Docherty, National Centre for Universities and

Business (Chair)

• HEI reps

• Industry, NGOs, Civil Society reps

• Student reps

• Meets twice a year

• Ongoing relationship with HEFCE – meetings, staff

presentation

2. Human resources & developing teams

• Shared recruitment for Education Coordinators (ECs)

• agreed job profile across partners

• University of Reading led recruitment – link to

other partner websites

• Team building with ECs early on

• Effective ways of working for ECs

3. Finance and forecasting

• University of Oxford leads - Programme Leader and

Programme Manager

• Different finance systems in each HEI

• Network of finance officers in each HEI

• Workshop with finance officers to explain the programme

– chaired by Departmental HAF

• Financial reporting and forecasting at each meeting

• Consortium funds used flexibly – recruitment,

communications activity

4. IT and educational support

• Virtual Learning Environment – development and support

• Network of education departments

• Network of educational technologists

• Network of careers services - being established

• Educational outcomes for students – Food Systems

Professional

5. Marketing & communications

• Website – hosted and supported at Oxford

• Social media strategy – with input from City, University of

London

• Exhibition stands – each partner use locally

• Promotional video – targeted at students and course

directors

• Marketing materials – leaflets, posters and mugs(!)

• …all takes time to scope, agree and sign-off

6. Plan the future now

• External facilitator to design 2-day workshop of staff

• Reflections from staff on IFSTAL now and what staff

would like it to be

• Reflections on year 1 – highlights, surprises,

disappointments, proud of

• Learning to take forward – educational content,

students, IFSTAL staff, technology, cross-institutional

working

• Vision for the future – students, each university,

IFSTAL staff, each university, funders, workplace

• Actions and plan to secure sustainable funding

IFSTAL – improvements for year 2

• Clear Learning Objectives for students

• Improvements to VLE

• Appointment of Workplace Engagement Lead

• Engage with range of employers;

• Work with careers services

• Earlier face to face engagement with students

• Move from 8 lectures to 4 ‘flip classroom’ units: online

content and face to face activity

• More events – two away days, PhD symposium; Public

lecture, IFSTAL symposium, summer school

Final observations

• Cross-organisational working takes time

• Early team development is important – sustain, reflect,

improve, develop

• Effective leadership is key – take partners with you,

diplomacy, value different perspectives

• Communication – pick up the phone

• Find a solution – can-do attitude

• Create space for reflection – adapt and improve

What the students say…

“IFSTAL is a coherent programme that delivers excellent postgraduate learning on food systems” Titilayo Adebola, PhD Law, Warwick, from Nigeria

“IFSTAL will help me in my career by building a network of people involved in the food system” Kate Jarvis, MBA, Oxford, from Australia

“IFSTAL has given me so much extra to my taught course and has been invaluable to me” Yorick Bruins, MSc Food Policy, City, from NL

“A great way to engage and learn, and you can only gain from taking part” Brooke Watson, MSc Epidemiology, LSHTM, from USA

“I was informed by IFSTAL about an internship opportunity with Defra – I applied and was successful.” Milorad Plavsic, PhD AgEcon, Reading, from Serbia

Questions?