Food4Growth – a Nordic Sino Network for Healthy Diets, Nutrition and Lifestyle

The overall purpose of the Food4Growth project is to connect researchers in the Nordic countries and China in order to advance research and education within the area of both public health nutrition and clinical nutrition and thereby strengthening the Nordic Centre’s research profile.

The scientific focus of the Food4Growth project are 1) to compare the public hospital food service systems and approaches in the Nordic countries and China, then 2) to utilise the results to improve the quality of public hospital food service systems through exchange of experiences, study the pros and cons of two systems from the Nordic and the Chinese, and 3) to structure the possible new innovative public hospital food service systems for population in the Nordic region and China.

The network will provide a good basis for the Food4Growth project’s ambition to expand the cooperation with the Chinese educational institutions, and to remain positive cooperation between China and Nordic region. The network aims at developing a joint graduate programme in International Public Health Nutrition. Through this cooperative programme, universities in Nordic countries and China will get a better understanding of each other, especially in the area of public health nutrition and clinical nutrition education so as to facilitate further educational cooperational collaborative events. Through participation in the network, the university students in China and the Nordic region will gain more practical experiences in national and international collaborative events. The students will also have the chance to visit or study the other countries participating in the network, to further understand the development status in relevant fields of the universities and enterprises abroad. Through the workshops in each participating country, the partners will discuss the funding opportunities for the future graduate programme and future research projects.