The designation, which will run for four years, recognises the group’s global leadership in research at the intersection of food systems, health, and environmental sustainability.
As a designated Collaborating Centre, the team will contribute to WHO’s work on the promotion of healthy and sustainable diets, particularly in the WHO European Region. This includes supporting the development and implementation of Nutrient Profile Models, a key policy tool for public health nutrition, and contributing to capacity-building initiatives by developing and delivering training courses in collaboration with WHO colleagues.
A multidisciplinary team of experts
The new Centre will be co-directed by Dr Jessica Renzella and Professor Mike Rayner, who previously led a WHO Collaborating Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention (2013–2021) in Oxford Population Health.
This new designation reflects a shift in the team’s focus, towards integrating health, sustainability, and food policy to address today’s complex global nutrition challenges. Dr Renzella and Professor Rayner will work closely with Professor Peter Scarborough, Principal Investigator of the Sustainable Healthy Food Group, alongside early-career, mid-career, and senior researchers with diverse expertise, from health and environmental modelling to qualitative, co-production research methods.
Together, they aim to produce policy-relevant evidence that supports governments and organisations in creating healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable food systems.
Strengthening Oxford’s collaboration with WHO
Dr Jess Renzella, Co-director of the Collaborating Centre and Researcher in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said: ‘The global food system faces many health and environmental challenges; however, these challenges also present significant opportunities for transformation and positive change. Our team feels extremely excited and honoured to be designated as a Collaborating Centre, as the designation formalises our relationship with WHO and creates new opportunities for evidence to inform real-world decision making. It is our hope that our new collaboration with WHO will create policy and public health impact.’
Professor Mike Rayner, Co-director of the Collaborating Centre and Professor of Population Health at the Oxford Population Health, said: ‘I’m delighted that our partnership with the WHO has been renewed. This relationship has led to many fruitful collaborations over the years and has helped our research reach global policy audiences.’
Professor Peter Scarborough, Lead of the Sustainable Healthy Food Group at NDPCHS, said: ‘As with all global systems, the key challenge to the food system in the 21st century is sustainability. Increasingly, governments need to take policy action to ensure that the food system is healthy and equitable, and that its environmental footprint remains within planetary boundaries. This will involve different actions in different countries, but we are finding that policies for sustainable diets often have positive health co-benefits. I am delighted that this Collaborating Centre will help us share good policy and practice for healthy, sustainable and equitable food systems.’