Profile
Trained in soil science, John Ingram gained extensive experience in the 1980s working in Africa and Asia in agriculture and forestry research projects. In 1991 he was recruited by UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to help organise, coordinate and synthesise research on global change and agroecology, part of IGBP's international global change research programme. In 2001 he was appointed the Executive Officer for the international research project Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS). On the close of GECAFS in 2011 he was appointed NERC Food Security Leader until joining ECI to establish and lead the Food Systems Transformation Research Programme in May 2013. In May 2024 he handed over the programme leadership to Dr Monka Zurek, but remains Principle Investigator in several UK and EU research projects.
His interests are in the conceptual framing of food systems; the interactions among the many actors involved and their varied activities, and the outcomes of their activities for food security, livelihoods and environment; and food system resilience. He has designed and led regional food system research projects in Europe, south Asia, southern Africa and the Caribbean and has conceived, developed and/or led a range of major international research initiatives. He has had substantial interaction with FAO, UNEP and CGIAR and many other international organisations, with national departments and agencies, with NGOs, and with businesses in the food sector, helping to establish research on the links between food security and environment through the analysis of food systems. He leads the multi-university post-graduate Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning programme (IFSTAL) and co-leads the Foresight4Food (F4F) initiative. Recent activity includes coordinating the £15m UK Global Food Security programme Resilience of the UK Food System and leading the £2m UKRI/TUKFS BeanMeals project. He is an Associate Professor in Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment, and Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College.
Research
Developing and promoting ECI's food systems research programme; Co-I on several food systems research projects; Leading the multi-university Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning programme (IFSTAL).
Projects
- IFSTAL
- FoodSIVI
- Foresight4Food
- FoSTr
- H-Eu FOSTER
- H-EU FoSSNet
- Ireland/UK Co-Centre
Report
Mapping the UK food system: A report for the UKRI Transforming UK Food Systems Programme
This report quantifies the distribution of economic value, the number of enterprises, and levels of employment across the UK food system. It has ‘mapped’ UK food system activities as described by their economic value, employee and enterprise numbers. This provides a first assessment of the overall shape of the UK food system and a foundation to build on for further analyses.