NNEdPro arose from the 2007 Nutrition Action Plan of the UK Health Departments and was originally coined as the Need for Nutrition Education Project (2008-10) with support from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). The project subsequently gained further support from the Medical Research Council (MRC), evolving into the Need for Nutrition Education/Innovation Programme (2011-15). Following incorporation in 2015, NNEdPro received additional support from Innovate UK and was restructured through the ‘Innovate to Succeed Programme’ at St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge to become the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health (2016-22), a multi-award-winning, interdisciplinary, and international think-tank.

 

Since its inception, NNEdPro has received co-hosting support from the Cambridge Institute of Public Health (2008-10), the MRC Elsie Widdowson Laboratory (2010-18) and the British Dietetic Association (2008-22). Over this period, NNEdPro experienced extensive growth and finally restructured in July 2022 to become the NNEdPro Global Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, a social enterprise incorporating the functions of an independent research organisation, education and training centre, and providing advisory services, all of which draw from a 15-year track record of excellence in thought leadership. Read more about our history here.

 

Anchored at St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge (UK), which hosts our corporate office, we operate virtually across borders, bringing together over 850 international collaborators from 78 countries and convening ten regional networks across six continents. Our corporate office provides a close working interface with the University of Cambridge, whilst our partner journal office is hosted in the BMJ publishing group in London, England. Additionally, our partner laboratory office is hosted at Ulster University in Northern Ireland and our strategy office is located in Dundee, Scotland. Our Virtual Core team of over 70 highly qualified professionals works seamlessly to undertake social impact projects alongside world-class research, including trials, data science and evidence synthesis, whilst also developing innovative educational models for capacity building. We also offer a wide range of education and training courses, including our flagship Summer School in Applied Human Nutrition as well as continuing professional development opportunities, which include our annual International Summit in Nutrition and Health. Our outputs to date include in excess of 230 peer-reviewed publications alongside a plethora of articles/blogs, books/chapters, conference abstracts, invited presentations and policy reports. Our Summer School has trained over 240 people, and our Summit has received over 1200 attendees from over 40 countries. We have also been directly involved in the basic nutrition training of over 2,000 medical students and junior doctors. Read more about our work here.

​

Since our inception, we have competed successfully to receive support from several UK Government agencies, including the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and the UK Health Departments, the Medical Research Council (MRC), Innovate UK, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). We are a member of multiple UKRI-supported research consortia, including the GCRF Cambridge TIGR2ESS Group, BBSRC Reading Food Biosystems Group, ESRC Cambridge DTP Group, GCRF Surrey India Group and the GCRF Ulster Latin America Safe Water Group. We have also regularly received competitive funding from several Non-Government and Non-Profit agencies both in the UK and internationally. Across our projects and initiatives, we work in close collaborative partnership with a wide range of academic institutions (including the University of Cambridge since 2008 and Ulster University since 2009) and specialist organisations (including the British Dietetic Association since 2008 and the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior since 2009) bringing together over a hundred international R&D collaborations. Read more about our key strategic collaborations and partnerships here.

 

Over 2017-21, we have successfully founded several subsidiary organisations – Bhavishya Shakti Cooperative Society: The Mobile Teaching Kitchen (MTK) International Initiative; BMJ Nutrition, Prevention and Health (BMJ NPH); CREATE Global e-Academy; The International Academy of Nutrition Educators (IANE) and its associated International Knowledge Application Network-hub in Nutrition (iKANN); and The International Food and Nutrition (TIFN) Trust – NNEdPro is primarily responsible for the strategic management of these partner initiatives which link to our overall mission. Read more about our mission, vision and aims here.

 

Our work has been consistently recognised by numerous awards of national and international significance:

2024 EIT-EU Proof of Concept Award: Mobile Teaching Kitchen

2023 Finalist: The Glenmark Nutrition Awards

2022 SNEB Nutrition Education Program Impact Award

2021 University of Cambridge Vice Chancellor’s Awards

2019 Highly Commended, Emerald Interdisciplinary Research Awards

2018 Joint Recipient Global Challenges Award

2017 ESPEN-MNI International Winner

2017 BMA Charities Award

2016 Finalist & Runner-Up: BMJ Education Team of the Year Awards

2015 Complete Nutrition Outstanding Achievement Award

2013 BMA Josephine Lansdell Award