Researchers from the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products have discovered an enzyme which could be harnessed to turn rice farming waste and other crop by-products into liquid fuel. The enzyme comes from the gut of a wood-boring sea creature called "gribble", which historically attacked the timber hulls of seafarers’ ships, and continues to damage wooden piers and docks in coastal communities.

Read our case study to find out more.

IKnowFood is a four year project funded by the Global Food Security Programme which explores food resilience on farms, in supply chains and among consumers. Using an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder approach, the project is developing a unifying understanding of food system resilience by integrating the knowledge and perspectives of people who are affected by the food system and have influence on it.

Find out more on the IKnowFood website.

Researchers in the Stockholm Environment Institute at York and from several of the University’s academic departments have been working in a Palestinian refugee camp to explore the management of household food waste.

Richard Friend (Environment and Geography) and Kelley Redeker (Biology) visited the camp to understand the camp’s waste flows – where and how waste is disposed – and waste management needs. The group is examining how informality and uncertainty in the camp affects waste processing systems.

Globally, this is an under-researched topic. The researchers aim to expand the project’s scope to include other refugee camps in different countries.

The Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN) is a national research hub developing innovative ways to measure the effectiveness of policies on energy, water, environment, and food (the ‘nexus’). By identifying where complexity presents a challenge to policy interventions, the Centre contributes to more effective policy making.

Visit the CECAN website.