There is a growing interest in sustainable agriculture and sustainability in the food supply chain. Through evaluation of comments and interactions from an online course this project aims to investigate the interest in sustainable food and consider food sustainability labelling or accreditation and what measures it might cover.
Department: Sustainable Land Management
Supervised by: Katherine Clark, Alice Mauchline
Are consumers interested in sustainability? Is there a call for labelling food products with measures of sustainability? What might accreditation for sustainability consider? The Trust In Food MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), developed by the University of Reading, Università degli Studi di Torino and EUFIC, has run six times on FutureLearn since 2018. The course has introduced over 7000 Learners to various concepts in food systems, food safety, nutrition and quality and sustainability. As part of the teaching and learning aspect of the course, the FutureLearn platform encourages interactions between learners and offers them a chance to comment and share in an online forum. These comments and interactions can then be evaluated. This project aims to evaluate the comments and interactions between Learners on the course to explore the following questions: • Do Learners have an interest in sustainability issues in relation to food growing and production? • Is there any interest in a food labelling scheme to highlight sustainability? • If there is interest in labelling what do Learners consider the scheme / labelling should cover with respect to sustainability issues? • What do Learners highlight as the main issues in relation to sustainability and food growth and production?
Qualitative (thematic) analysis of learner comments; Analysis and interpretation of the data; Evaluation and development of “sustainability labelling” concept; Literature review; Report writing
Some knowledge of sustainability concepts and food growth and production; Some knowledge or interest in developing skills around qualitative analysis
Further knowledge and understanding of sustainability concepts in food growth and production and consumer perceptions; Qualitative data extraction and interpretation; Working as part of a multidisciplinary research team
Can be undertaken remotely
35 hrs/wk, flexible timings – to be set on agreement between student and supervisor
Monday 03 July 2023 - Friday 18 August 2023
The deadline to apply for this opportunity is Monday 3rd April 2023. Students should submit their CV and Cover Letter directly to the Project Supervisor (click on supervisor name at the top of the page for email). Successful candidates will be invited for an interview.