Joint Postgraduate School:
Food Transitions 2050
PROPOSED PROJECTS FOR 2025 HAVE NOW BEEN FINALISED
AND OUR FUTURE STUDENTS ARE BEING SELECTED
Congratulations to our successful project teams and students. We look forward to welcoming you in the coming months
The Joint Postgraduate School Food Transitions 2050 is a partnership initiative between five research organisations located in the Canterbury region: the University of Canterbury (UC), Lincoln University (LU), Plant & Food Research, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, and AgResearch.
Our Partners:
News
The 2025 Application round is now closed. Congratulations to successful project teams and students
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The 2025 Application round is now closed. Congratulations to successful project teams and students -
Showcasing Our Research
Our March seminar showcased two of our 2024 students and their projects:
Ananya Agnihotri:
Linking farm and landscape habitat management with the costs and benefits of bird foraging on farm production.
Darshika Wixkramasinghe:
Characterization of a Novel NAC Transcription Factor in Zea mays.
Thank you both for sharing what you are up to. We look forward to seeing the results.
Look for the disruptor.
Be willing to pivot.
Reinvest.
IMPACT
The End Result of your Research
As part of the January workshop, FT2050 students were invited to think about what the impact of their research will be.
Not just academic impact (ie publishing papers), but research impact. How will the public benefit from what they are doing? Questioned posed were:
What is your WHY?
Why are you researching what you are researching?
Who do you want to have an influence on?
What do you want them to learn?
What will you do reach out to these people?
How will you know you have successfully shared your learnings with them?
Guest speakers for our February workshop were:
Stewart Pittaway (Team Leader, Northern Mountains Poverty Reduction Project),
Peter Conley (Chief Executive, ANZCO Foods), and
Andy Borland (Managing Director, Scales Global Foods)
From apples to pet food, beef to biotech, and food security in Asia, our panellists shared their experiences, thoughts and hopes for their respective industries, answering some very thought provoking questions from the audience.
To quote/paraphase Andy “Look for the disruptor, be willing to pivot, and reinvest to get the most out of what you are doing”.
Overview
Food Transitions 2050 is a postgraduate school focusing on food sustainability. The result of a multilateral partnership, the initiative is dedicated to supporting the transition of our regional, national and international food systems – the first for postgraduate research in Aotearoa New Zealand. The school’s core purpose is to support the transition to more future-focused, sustainable food systems and preparation by the year 2050.
At the heart of the initiative is a virtual community of practice of PhD students and their supervisory teams conducting research in a set of PhD projects linked by the overarching theme of Food Transitions 2050.
How it works
PhD students in the initiative are enrolled at one of the two university partners, and students and their supervisory teams operate under the requirements for PhD research enrolment at their home university. The intention is that the PhD student experience is as consistent as possible across the School.
“The school’s core purpose is to support the transition to more future-focused, sustainable food systems and preparation.”
Applications for projects are currently closed.
Applications for projects by supervisory teams are open in July each year, and prospective candidates will be able to apply for PhD positions within these projects from November.