FoodSHINES is BAFR-UK’s doctoral placement scheme. In 2025 the project launched a call offering six paid consultancy placements, each hosted by a BAFR advisory board member organisation that had identified a specific food system challenge for the placement to tackle.
Finlay Craig, 2026, in partnership with BAFR-UK and Better Food Traders.
Nikhil Ghosh, 2026, in partnership with BAFR-UK and WWF.
Josephine Heger, 2026, in partnership with BAFR-UK and Sustain.
Muhammad Umar, 2026, in partnership with BAFR-UK and Met Office.
This report shows how planning powers can help create the physical conditions for sustainable food retailers to operate, while discretionary business rates relief can directly incentivise and support them to deliver social and environmental value. Used together and strengthened through targeted reforms, these tools can help local authorities build healthier, more resilient, and sustainable local food systems.
This report contributes to this agenda by offering a typology through which policy for food system transformation can be conceptualised and assessed. It examines the risks to UK agriculture under current policy in the context of a changing climate and future biodiversity risk.
This report explores how a national protein strategy could strengthen the role of pulses for human consumption in the UK’s food system, including agricultural production, supply chains, and consumption. It draws on observations and learnings from three case studies in the European Union (EU) – Denmark, Flanders and Sweden – to formulate lessons learned and recommendations for UK policy.
This report critically reviews the existing tools, models, datasets, and analytical approaches used to assess overseas climate risks to the UK food system. It identifies strengths and limitations in existing approaches and proposes recommendations for improving future decision-support architecture.
We plan to publish two further papers and a summary report by December 2026.
The placements were open to UK-based doctoral students of any discipline and involved desk-based and field research culminating in a report addressing the assigned challenge.
The call drew 46 applications from researchers across the UK. Six researchers were selected, each supervised by academics on the BAFR-UK project together with individuals from the host organisations. Over five weeks (equivalent) between March and October 2026, each will research and produce a report for their host organisation.
In February 2026, all FoodSHINES placement applicants were invited to a workshop at ARU's Cambridge campus to explore the current, wide-ranging challenges facing the food system. Thirty-four PhD student delegates travelled from across the UK – with BAFR able to cover conference costs and travel expenses.
The workshop combined career and research focused presentations, networking, and structured problem-solving. Group discussions were led by the successful candidates – exploring placement challenges and initial ideas for how each might be approached.
