Master in Food Systems
Cohort 2023-2025
Master in Food Systems programme is developing top talent for the food sector, by training the leaders of the future.
The programme is delivered by Lund University, University of Hohenheim, University of Reading, University of Turin, University of Warsaw & Aarhus University in collaboration with EIT Food & University of Cambridge.
Course information
The programme develops a combination of:
- Entrepreneurial skills to help you become an effective innovator and,
- Key technical skills tailored to your career ambitions in the sector.
The Master’s in Food Systems programme is developing top talent for the food sector, by training the leaders of the future. Organised by leading academic institutions and industrial partners from across our Partner network, this programme encourages you to drive a future transformation of the food system and increase the competitiveness of the companies you choose to work for.
By working alongside colleagues from a wide variety of different academic backgrounds, you will become creative leaders and team builders capable of bringing distinctive points of view along with novel solutions for tomorrow’s consumers and citizens.
You will embark on a ‘learning and experimental’ journey through our network of industrial, academic and entrepreneurial partners.
Advantages
By the end of the programme, you will be able to:
- Critically assess the short and long-term consequences of decisions from an integrated scientific, ethical and inter-generational perspective.
- Collaborate in a team environment using a solution-based approach.
- Translate innovations into feasible business solutions for the food sector.
- ‘Think outside the box’, and systematically explore and generate new ideas, responding to current and future challenges within the food system.
- Use knowledge, ideas and technology to create new or significantly improved products, services, processes, new business models or jobs in the food sector.
- Use cutting-edge research techniques for new venture creation and growth, and apply these in cross-disciplinary teams and contexts.
- Create novel solutions to research problems and challenges through practical experiences in different areas of the food sector.
- Develop decision-making and leadership competencies.
Level: Graduate/Master
Audience: Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Sciences, Biological/Life Sciences, Food Science, Chemistry, Food Safety and/or Nutrition
Course duration: 2 academic years
- Language: English
Master Degree
What you learn?
You will learn the following competencies:
- Food Systems:
- Develop strategies to address current and future sustainability challenges using systems approaches
- Design innovative responses to address sustainability challenges in the food system
- Entrepeneurship:
- Create opportunities for value creation
- Mobilise resources to create sustainable value for others
- Design and implement effective actions to deliver impact
- Problem Solving:
- Appraise the problem space to identify current and future needs
- Mobilise effective methodologies to generate new ideas
- Appraise the validity of new ideas and co-create sustainable solutions
- Critical Thinking:
- Collect, analyse, interpret and report information to develop sustainable solutions to current and future challenges
- Appraise unintended consequences of any course of action to devise ethical goals
- Leadership:
- Implement a food system innovation project in a particular work or study context
- Communication:
- Identify, engage with and respond to stakeholder needs
- Develop strategies to deliver effective communications approaches
- Translate complex ideas for different audiences
- Technology Management:
- Educate and support others to use emerging technologies in (radical or breakthrough) innovation processes
- Challenge others to apply technologies to different problem spaces
Structure
The duration of this programme is 2 years.
All students will follow the online module “Introduction to the Food System” as the first module of the first semester. You then will go through a semester-long study block at your home university (the institution in which you enrol).
The second semester is spent at a second university of the consortium (your first host institution). You will also take part in a Summer School on entrepreneurship with all other students enrolled on the programme.
You start at your third university (the second host institution) during the third semester, where you take part in a semester-long Market Feasibility Study along with further food systems modules.
For the final semester, you return to your home institution to complete your Master’s thesis. The thesis will be mentored by a team of EIT Food Partners (including players from industry, academia and research institutes).
Each university offers a specific block of courses based on their expertise, and by combining three of these study tracks you will gain integrated knowledge of the food system (e.g. primary production + food processing + consumer sciences, or food production + logistics + digitisation).
In addition, pan-European activities at industrial partner sites will ensure you bond with the rest of the students enrolled on the programme.
Participation Fees and Scholarships
EU: €9000/academic year
Non-EU: €18000/academic year
Scholarships
For Colombian students:
Collaborative Agreement between EIT Food and Fundación para el Futuro de Colombia (Colfuturo)
EIT Food has entered into a collaboration agreement with COLFUTURO to support Columbian student in their professional development by offering a joint offering for students accepted in EIT Food Master in Food Systems.
EIT Food will provide a scholarship of minimum of 50% of the participation fee per academic year (for a period of two academic years) to a maximum of five Colombian students, while Columbian students can apply for a loan at COLFUTURO which can be converted into a scholarship as well (based on a certain conditions).
COLFUTURO’s financing system consists of a Loan-Scholarship of up to USD50,000 for a maximum financing period of two years.
COLFUTURO is a Colombian non-profit foundation that was established in 1991 with the support of the National Government and some of the most important companies of the private sector in the country at that time. Its main objective is to provide financial support and increase the possibilities of Colombian citizens to access high-quality postgraduate study programs abroad.
All the information on how to apply to COLFUTURO Scholarship is here: https://www.colfuturo.org/programas/credito-beca/informacion-general 
Application deadlines:
- International students: 30th March 2023
- EEA students: 25th June 2023
Career Opportunities
With their expertise in consumer-oriented development of novel food products, technologies and services, and their uniquely integrative understanding of the entire food value chain in its socio-economic embedding, Master in Food Systems graduates provide a key human resource for food sector companies seeking to maintain a competitive edge by following vertical integration strategies. Other career paths include:
- Academic
- Research institutes
- Entrepreneurial ventures
- Policy
- Food Safety Agencies
