Children at Mulanda Primary School

UKRI GCRF Hub

Interdisciplinary Approach

I think there’s growing success for sure in terms of putting interdisciplinary people together and really letting things happen based on interactions that haven’t happened before.

Alfred G. Gilman, 1994 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

We urgently need to harness the power of the collective to respond to the toughest global challenges – from climate change to global food insecurity to mass migration. To do so, the UK government launched 12 Global Interdisciplinary Research Hubs to bring a coordinated global response to formidable development challenges at scale.

The 12 Hubs unite multi-institutional, interdisciplinary teams to develop innovative and sustainable solutions that improve the lives of many of the world’s hardest-to-reach people. Together they present a huge opportunity to make the world healthier, safer and more prosperous.

The ‘UKRI GCRF Action against Stunting Hub’ is an interdisciplinary team comprising researchers from 17 partner institutions. Running from March 2019 – March 2024, our mission is to transform current research on child undernutrition or stunting from individual components of the problem to the ‘whole child’.

We aim to understand the biological, social, environmental, and behavioural context of stunting.

By undertaking a range of child-focused interventions to prevent, improve and even reverse some critical features of stunting, we will positively impact the lives of millions of children, ensuring that they have the best possible start in life to fulfil their potential.

RELATED EVENTS

A career in International Development: panel discussion with Hub researchers

By Alessia Gasco | 27th June 2022 |

LIDC and the Action Against Stunting Hub are holding an online career event for students with an interest in international development who want to find out more about a career in academia.

Decolonising our food systems: whose land, whose seas?

By Alessia Gasco | 27th June 2022 |

Decolonising food systems involves changing the way we think about food and how we obtain our food. This means challenging who makes decisions about who gets access to safe, nutritious food to eat. It is, therefore, a question of environmental sustainability, access to power, and justice.

ANH2022 Side event: Global Nutrition Policy: Levers, Blockers and Role of Innovative Research

By Alessia Gasco | 27th June 2022 |

Achieving child stunting targets, SDG 2.2, and ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030 will demand multi-sectoral policy and programmatic actions. It will require bringing together multi-sector interventions targeting mothers and children to address direct and broader underlying factors such as diet, disease prevention, food systems, women’s empowerment, and socioeconomic factors. Nutrition is a smart…

The stunting puzzle: what role do helminths play?

By Alessia Gasco | 18th May 2022 |

In this webinar, our team presents their systematic review on helminths infections. They researched the current evidence to help support or refute the hypothesis that helminths cause physical stunting in children.

Ukraine Invasion and Food Systems: Short- and Long-term Impact

By Alessia Gasco | 18th March 2022 |

In this webinar, Joseph Glauber and David Laborde, Senior Research Fellows with IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, will present their latest research. They will try to unfold the long and short consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the Global Food Systems. 

Beyond 2030: tackling stunting in India more sustainably and equitably

By Alessia Gasco | 7th February 2022 |

In this webinar, we will explore the current nutrition status in India. We will touch on inequality, environment, climate change and governance to give a complete overview of what can be done to improve the lives of millions of families.

Nurturing children’s development

By Alessia Gasco | 20th December 2021 |

The webinar will explore the early childhood education system in India and Senegal using a documentary analysis

Listen and Learn: a discussion about supporting quality early childhood education

By Alessia Gasco | 16th November 2021 |

A conversation to gain views on a variety of early childhood learning approaches in Senegal and engage in a discussion about supporting quality early childhood education.

Do your surveys make sense?

By Alessia Gasco | 12th November 2021 |

How can we be confident that the surveys we develop are meaningful in the real-world and translate accurately across languages and sociocultural settings?

Webinar: Action Against Stunting Day

By Alessia Gasco | 1st September 2021 |

Join us on 8 September as we bring together policymakers, donors and academics in our inaugural Action Against Stunting Day event. Together, these key actors can commit to promoting research and interventions to reduce stunting by 2025.