IFSTAL 2017/18 Launch Event
Join us for the launch of the third year of IFSTAL (Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning programme). Come and join a large and diverse community of students studying food related issues. This year we are opening up the event to undergraduates. This event will introduce you to IFSTAL and each other and give you a highlight of what we have to offer over the coming year!
www.ifstal.ac.uk

IFSTAL is a HEFCE-funded, interactive programme designed to improve postgraduate level knowledge and understanding of the food system. It is free, voluntary and open to all postgraduate students enrolled on any course across the partner institutions (undergraduate students are also welcome to participate on request).
The IFSTAL programme provides added value to postgraduate training across the University of Oxford and four partner institutions (Reading, Warwick, City and LSHTM/RVC/SOAS).
IFSTAL has engaged over 750 students across the five HEIs in its first two years. We have strong connections with the practitioners working in a range of sectors including food retail, production, logistics, research, NGOs etc.
Students who engage with IFSTAL enter the workforce better equipped to tackle food system challenges; we are developing a “Food Systems Community”.

For students:

Complete a programme of cutting-edge, flexible, online units on food systems thinking and methodologies, complemented by face-to-face workshops.
Join a large and diverse community of over 800 food systems thinkers including students, alumni and workplace practitioners.
Connect with workplace practitioners working on real life food system challenges.
Take part in events for interdisciplinary team-based learning and student-workplace networking.
Enhance your CV, develop a range of soft skills, receive tailored support from your local careers service, plus opportunities for work and dissertation placements, internships and more .
Engage as much as you want; the programme is completely free and voluntary, but the more you put in, the more you get out.

Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL) programme was developed to establish new ways of interdisciplinary learning, drawing on skills across and between institutions. It is an interactive training programme designed to improve postgraduate level knowledge and understanding of the food system. With core funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), it brings together expertise and experience of faculty and students from five leading higher education institutions. It is generating a cohort of Oxford Masters and PhD graduates equipped to address food systems challenges by framing their specialist understanding gained through their degrees within the broader social, economic and environmental context. This enhances their professional capability in critical and innovative food system thinking; it helps them to be more effective in the workplace by enabling them to make a distinctive contribution to improving global and national food policies, practice and security.

The format of this event consist of a short live-stream across the partner institutions followed by few very short talks and networking drinks and canapés.

In addition to students who are interested in joining the programme, invitees to the launch event include: graduate course directors, directors of graduate studies, academic officers, senior divisional and departmental administrators (from across Oxford’s divisions), IFSTAL students and alumni, and external partners.
Date: 19 October 2017, 17:00 (Thursday, 2nd week, Michaelmas 2017)
Venue: Oxford Martin School, 34 Broad Street OX1 3BD
Venue Details: Seminar Rooms 1 and 2
Speaker: Various Speakers
Organising department: Environmental Change Institute
Organisers: Dr Saher Hasnain (University of Oxford), Roger Sykes (Environmental Change Institute), Dr Michael Panagopulos (University of Oxford), Dr John Ingram (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: ifstal-oxford@eci.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ifstal-201718-launch-tickets-38103788457
Booking email: ifstal-oxford@eci.ox.ac.uk
Cost: Free
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Michael Panagopulos