The interdisciplinary venture has been forged by LIDC - a collaborative project  which addresses complex problems in international development by bringing together social and natural scientists from across the University of London's six Bloomsbury Colleges. Academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Royal Veterinary College (RVC), and The School of Pharmacy, will participate in the research. The initiative provides for professorial and lectureship positions, as well as postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.  All research projects will be designed as joint activities between health and agricultural researchers. The programme  will also organise international meetings and exchanges to help develop this new area. Entitled 'Building an Agri-Health Discipline to Link Agricultural and Health Research', the programme  is one of only two awards given  this summer  under the Embedding of Emerging Disciplines initiative of The Leverhulme Trust , which funds research and education.

Professor Jeff Waage, Director of LIDC and principal investigator  for the Agri-Health programme,  said: "We see in global patterns of malnutrition today, including under- and over-nutrition, a fundamental mismatch between strategies and policies for food production and population health. This mismatch is due in part to decades of separation of agricultural and health research. This programme will challenge this siloed approach by linking researchers across sectors and disciplines to develop the new tools we need to design and produce a healthy diet for 9 billion people.  The Agri-Health programme exemplifies LIDC's commitment to encouraging  international development research and training that crosses  traditional boundaries to deliver better outcomes."

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