Impact Hub
The CFRS encourages and supports ECRs to engage with multiple stakeholders to promote the vision and mission of CFRS. This Hub aims to promote public awareness about the challenges and good practices in sustainable food and rural transition in China and the global south through blogs written by CFRS members or reports of relevant events.
Background of the CFRS
The origin of the CFRS can be traced back to the Farmer innovation system in the Loess Plateau of China (2009-2010, project webpage), a part of UK’s ESPA Programme (Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation). The idea was further developed through an international workshop on Global-local knowledge system for rural innovation and entrepreneurship in the developing world (2019, report here) and enriched by a GCRF Pilot Project: Cooperative ecosystem to empower small farmers in the poor areas of China (2020, report here).
Thanks to the Newton-NSFC ECR Links Workshop Grant, “Systematic innovation for food security and rural sustainability”, this project attracted 41 ECRs mainly from UK and China. To cope with the interruption by Covid-19 Pandemic, a series of pre-workshop activities were arranged online for ECRs to meet mentors and stakeholder representatives via group meeting, methodological salons and roundtable meetings. The above preparation provides a sound base for UK-China ECR Links Workshop (8-9/12/2021) with aims to establish the CFRS through keynote speeches, ECR presentations and roundtable discussions. For details of project implementation, research findings and outcomes will be found, please see the report below.
Systematic Innovation Approach for Future Rural Studies in the Global South: A Research Report on Building a Platform for UK-China ECR Collaboration
English version
Chinese version
Both the UK and China play an important role in global agricultural research and innovation to drive the green transformation and sustainable development of agriculture. Facing severe challenges in climate change, biodiversity loss, land resources degradation, overexploitation of water resources, energy crisis, increased plant and animal disease and air pollution, it is impossible for one country or single discipline to propose effective solutions to cope with these challenges. Given the leading role the UK and China play in these areas, it is necessary to strengthen and deepen exchanges and cooperation in various fields of agricultural research and innovation to provide new ideas and solutions to cope with these challenges.
In this context, the British Embassy Beijing and the Department of International Cooperation of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) jointly planned a research on the UK-China cooperation in agricultural research and innovation. The British Embassy Beijing funded and commissioned two research teams from the CAAS and the University of Nottingham (UoN) to conduct this research.
Download the Executive summary (Bilingual)
Read the Full Report (English)
Read the Chinese Version
Download the Event report
To launch the CFRS, an International Forum of Future Rural Studies (IFFRS) was organised in October 2022.
Read the event report
UK-China ECR Workshop on Systematic Innovation for Food Security and Rural Sustainability in China (December 2021)
To address the challenges of food system transition and rural sustainability studies in the global south, a UK-China ECR Links workshop was successfully held online, on the 8 and-9 December 2021. The theme of the event was: Systematic Innovation for Food Security and Rural Sustainability in China.
Further reading
Founding Institutes of the Consortium of Future Rural Studies: