The IFSTAL landscape consists of academics, education coordinators, and a growing student and alumni body from five collaborating institutions, workplace partners, and a diverse range of activities.
The academics and education coordinators have developed the core content on the online portal, and are responsible for delivering the various events at each participating university. This core IFSTAL team is an excellent resource for the students.
The workshops, away days, symposia, and summer schools follow on from the content on the IFSTAL Portal by providing focused, disciplinarily accommodating sites for students to work together on food systems challenges. These are excellent opportunities to meet with students from across the IFSTAL consortium and foster collaboration. Past summer schools have been highly successful in putting students from various backgrounds and fields together in tackling workplace projects, and crafting innovative solutions to food system problems.
A variety of internship and dissertation opportunities are provided through IFSTAL’s various linkages with organisations involved in different nodes of the food system. IFSTAL alumni have been placed within a number of partner organisations, and students can engage with them through the IFSTAL portal, or the LinkedIn network.
In summary, the IFSTAL programme provides a variety of resources for participating students:
- A skilled core team of academics and education coordinators
- A multi-disciplinary pool of students and alumni with similar research interests across five institutions
- Workplace partners who engage with talks, and internship and dissertation opportunities
- An online portal containing course material, resources, and discussion forums
- Multiple opportunities throughout the year to learn about methods and approaches within the food systems
Students can start by coming to the launch events at their respective institutions on the 19th of October, sign up to the Portal, and start coming to the events. With a wide range of opportunities for engagement, the programme is designed to complement students’ main programmes of study, and transform them into effective practitioners within the food system.
Find out more by signing up to the Portal, coming to one of our launch events, or contacting your local Education Coordinator.
Blog by Dr Saher Hasnain, IFSTAL Education Coordinator, University of Oxford.
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