SCAF at Two: Growing a Collaborative Research Future for Food in Scotland
Published: 1 April 2025
SCAF turned two this March, marking two years of funding ideas, strengthening connections, and fostering collaboration across disciplines to tackle food as a societal grand challenge. With a growing network and new approaches to research funding and engagement, the focus is now on deeper collaboration, broader inclusion, and bolder thinking beyond disciplinary silos.
By Prof Emilie Combet, SCAF director
This March, the Scottish Alliance for Food (SCAF) marks its second anniversary, highlighting two years of connecting researchers, professionals, and policymakers to tackle food as a societal grand challenge. Funded by the Scottish Funding Council, SCAF represents a strategic investment in food research for Scotland; one that drives collaboration, innovation, and impact across disciplines and sectors.
Since launching in 2023, SCAF has built a diverse and engaged network of over 600 members from more than 200 organisations. I have particularly enjoyed the opportunity to meet so many people across Scotland, discussing research in our respective fields and how it seeks to address the same societal grand challenge (and plan events and activities that could facilitate creative conversations). So far, the alliance has supported collaboration through 25 events, from sandpits to writing retreats, and awarded £62k in seed funding across 14 projects, helping to de-risk ideas and prime future research. Our mentoring and knowledge exchange activities have also strengthened career development pathways, ensuring that early-career professionals (both within and beyond academia) are supported in shaping the future of research linked to food as a societal grand challenge.
SCAF continues to grow its funding, networking, and knowledge-sharing opportunities, ensuring that members have access to the resources they need to develop ideas and collaborations. We are committed to supporting research that is ambitious, inclusive, and impactful, shaping Scotland’s role in the future of food on both national and global levels. We have also taken a different approach to supporting research by embedding transdisciplinary thinking in how we approach the challenge, and planning how our funding decisions are made through the use of blinded assessment and a lottery system to help mitigate bias, ensuring a fairer evaluation and allocation process.
Working alongside the three other Alliances for Research Challenges (ARCs) has allowed us to compare approaches, and explore what we value and have in common – which is probably a lot more than we would have expected at the start of the ARCs.
SCAF is open to all disciplines and sectors, because research on food is a genuinely federating challenge. As we look ahead, toward the next 2.5 years, we will focus on strengthening connections within the alliance, where diverse expertise is recognised, valued, and leveraged for greater impact. The recent cross-ARC webinar on Night Science, hosted by the Quantum Tech ARC, highlighted the potential of shifting from specialism to generalism as an opportunity for us all as researchers, but also for research environments to encourage bold thinking beyond disciplinary silos.
Through SCAF, I think we can aim to push this model further, creating a space where collaboration is deeper, all contributions are fully recognised, and new ways of working can be explored.
It has been a pleasure to work on this vision with the large SCAF leadership team – some of us started this journey many years ago, as we wrote a grant proposal that sadly never got awarded – but great ideas are never really lost, and I am glad that some of the original thinking came to life through SCAF, and hopefully many future SCAF-associated projects.
First published: 1 April 2025
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