Lancaster University is launching a new 'Food for Nature and Society' doctoral training programme to tackle our contemporary food system crises, while also protecting our planet.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the Leverhulme Doctoral Programme on Food for Nature and Society, which benefits from £5 million of funding from the Leverhulme Trust and with the equivalent of a £900,000 contribution from Lancaster University, will deliver 30 fully funded PhD scholarships over seven years.
The programme aims to develop the knowledge base necessary for food systems that enable nature to thrive and equitable societies to flourish, today and into the future.
Work will range from shaping sustainable fisheries and other wild food systems, the development of drought resistant crops to regenerating soils. It will also address the need for access to healthy foods, as well as protecting food worker livelihoods, fair wages, and conditions.
Global in scope and focused on the nexus of food, nature and society, this doctoral programme will be unique in its ambition and enable training of the next generation of interdisciplinary sustainable food system scientists.
Food production is the single largest driver of global biodiversity decline, soil and land degradation, environmental pollution, and is responsible for almost a third of global carbon emissions. At the same time, malnutrition is rising, healthy diets are increasingly unaffordable, and many food workers endure poor conditions and low wages. Although often tackled separately, these challenges are linked.
As a result, our food system is undergoing profound change. Climate change is already altering what foods can be produced and where, and our food system is controlled by a shrinking number of corporate actors with a disproportionate influence over what is produced and sold where, for how much, and by whom.
Distinguished Professor Christina Hicks, an environmental social scientist based in the Lancaster Environment Centre, is a recognised global leader in food systems science and is Director of the Leverhulme Doctoral Programme on Food for Nature and Society.
She said: "Despite advances in food systems science, we still lack the integrated understanding needed to steer changes towards a system that enables nature to thrive and equitable societies to flourish.
"Achieving such change requires boundary-spanning thinkers who are willing and capable of engaging with a diversity of disciplines, applying their thinking across geographic contexts and drawing on experiences from a range of sectors.
"Our programme will develop a new cohort of researchers who can navigate silos in food systems research and grapple with deep disciplinary divides."
The work of the Leverhulme Food for Nature and Society doctoral scholars will build the science necessary for the food system to support all people while rebuilding nature.
Three cohorts of doctoral scholars spanning disciplinary, geographic and societal backgrounds will be nurtured within a vibrant research environment. The funding will also include post-doctoral support to help students transition to the next stage of their career.
The programme will be structured around three integrated themes:
· Resilient food systems - projects will draw on different perspectives to reimagine approaches to ensure food systems can remain productive and safe.
· Regenerative food systems - projects will imagine how regenerative approaches that care for nature can succeed.
· Reparative food systems - projects will look at how harms caused by food systems can be repaired.
PhD projects will fall within one theme but must also consider how the research intersects with the other themes.
Six of the programme's scholarships are aimed at international candidates. A further six scholarships include a year of master's degree study and are aimed at UK students from under-represented groups to support their development as interdisciplinary champions for the food system.
Lancaster University has diverse and well-established research strengths aligned with food for nature and society and the programme brings together expertise within Lancaster University's School of Social Sciences, Lancaster University Management School and the Lancaster Environment Centre.
The programme was conceived by Professor Hicks together with Lancaster Environment Centre researchers Professor Nick Graham, Professor Jess Davies, Dr Douglas Orr and Professor Elizabete Carmo-Silva, with expertise spanning human geography, soils and plant sciences.
Professor Elizabete Carmo-Silva, director of postgraduate research programmes at the Lancaster Environment Centre, said: "The Food for Nature and Society doctoral scholars will benefit from and contribute to world-leading interdisciplinary research and training excellence.
"Together, we will embrace diverse perspectives and adopt complementary approaches to deliver holistic solutions for our food system that benefit both the planet and society."
The funding from the Leverhulme Trust is part of the 2026 Leverhulme Centenary Doctoral Scholarships grant, supporting exceptional academic talent and fostering innovative interdisciplinary inquiry.
The Leverhulme Doctoral Programme on Food for Nature and Society is one of 10 awards made to UK universities in 2026.
Professor Anna Vignoles, Director of the Trust, said: "Doctoral scholars are the bedrock of the academic system, and these scholarships provide the opportunity for people to do something exciting at the beginning of their academic career.
"Our focus on interdisciplinarity enables students who are working on related topics to come together and look at an issue from different angles."
