MSc Sustainable Food Systems

Content

You'll study

Agroecology and Sustainable Farming Systems:

• Sustainable food production
• Land and resource management
• Non-food crop production
• Ecosystem service provision
• Agroecological principles.

Co-production and place-based methods:

• Research ethics and power
• Co-production best practices
• Theory of change
• Field sampling methods
• Social science methods
• Lab techniques
• Scenarios and futures mapping
• Digital innovation in methods.

Creating Healthy food systems:

• Introduction to healthy food systems at different scales (local, national, international).
• Central concepts with regard to health and wellbeing in relation to sustainability, food, diet, and nutrition.
• Critically evaluating contemporary issues in health, environmental and social aspects of food systems.
• Theories of system and behavioural change with regard to health, sustainability, social action and food systems.
• Social and environmental justice in the context of food system problems and solutions.
• Critically assessing and developing actions, interventions and policies for healthy food systems.

Food security and food policy:

• Food sovereignty versus food security
• Food governance
• Food colonialism and migrant food cultures
• Political agroecology
• Anthropology of Food.

Sustainable food system supply chains:

• Aligning supply chain performance to organisational strategy
• Logistics and distribution systems
• Inventory control
• Sourcing, Purchasing, and procurement/Supplier Relationship Management
• Value chain and risk analysis
• Capacity management
• Applications of digital technologies for strategic improvements, such as provenance and traceability
• Just-in-time and lean management         
• Quality management; delivering sustainability and regulatory standard
• Contemporary issues in supply chains.

Research in practice

• Research in partnership with one or more relevant stakeholders, which may include academics, those in professional practice and external partners.
• A robust data-driven enquiry, which may be laboratory, field or desk- based.

The University continually enhances our offer by responding to feedback from our students and other stakeholders, ensuring the curriculum is kept up to date and our graduates are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need for the real world. This may result in changes to the course. If changes to your course are approved, we'll inform you.

Learning and Teaching

Your modules will include lectures delivered by external stakeholders, who will also co-supervise dissertation projects. This input from our professional connections incorporates a practice-oriented approach to your course content, enabling you to apply your new skills to real-world problems.

See our full glossary of learning and teaching terms.

Assessment

Our MSc Sustainable Food Systems offers a range of assessments that complement and stretch our diverse student cohort. We've designed our assessments to ensure they'll boost your confidence, curiosity and enthusiasm for your subject, while encouraging cross-disciplinary interaction.

You'll complete practice-led assessments, which reflect real-world food system challenges. Examples include debates, field reports, policy critiques and popular science articles. Throughout each assessment, you'll take a problem-based learning approach, empowering you and building your confidence when searching for solutions to global food system issues.

You'll develop your skills and knowledge in food governance, public health, education, agriculture and supply chain management, which are evaluated through examination and case studies. Throughout your assessments, you'll also focus on system governance, power and ethics, which highlight the importance of integrity and human factors in addressing food system challenges.

See our assessment information pages.