Introducing i-NutriLife

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), with support from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC), have launched six innovation hubs as part of a new Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC). They represent an investment of almost £15 million. The OIRC will help address critical shared barriers to innovation across the food and drink sector.

Poor diet has a huge impact on public health, as recently highlighted in the government food strategy.  The OIRC hubs will unite top leaders from academia, industry and other stakeholders to tackle the challenge of producing and promoting healthier, more nutritious food products in the UK.

As part of this initiative, the University of Southampton will lead the i-NutriLife hub, focussing on how food and beverages can improve nutrition across the entire life course including in older age.

Our Mission

The primary objective of i-NutriLife is to foster high-quality, innovative collaborative research between academia and industry, aimed at understanding how food and beverages can improve nutrition across the entire life course including in older age. This will enable the rapid translation of innovative research findings into healthier foods and beverages that can change biological and physiological processes to better address consumer needs. Through collaboration with research from other hubs, we will integrate complementary insights on food choices and behaviours, biofortification, and functional foods to enhance health throughout the life course by improving nutrition.

i-NutriLife will unite academic and industry partners to identify specific challenges in life course nutrition and its connections to healthy development and healthy ageing. The hub will be inclusive and open to membership for academic and industry partners. The hub will act to catalyse research to better understand the impact of whole diets, foods, nutrients and non-nutrient diet components (such as novel fibre sources, phytochemicals or probiotics) on biological and physiological processes across the life course. Working closely with industry partners, the Hub will support the development of new research and strategies to translate this new knowledge to

• improve growth, development, health and well-being in early life that is carried forward through the lifecourse to promote healthy ageing
• improve the diet of the population to prevent or slow age-related functional decline and loss of resilience and so to promote healthy ageing.