A key principle of the Research Consortium’s mission is to help decentralise the generation and use of evidence for school health and nutrition. While global collaboration is essential, many of the challenges facing school meal and school health programmes are shaped by regional contexts, priorities and systems. Supporting stronger connections between researchers, policymakers and practitioners within regions can help ensure that evidence is locally relevant, builds on existing expertise, and is translated into action.

Through our Global Academy of more than 1,500 members from 130+ countries, the Research Consortium supports the development and strengthening of regional networks that bring together experts working on school health and nutrition. These networks provide spaces to share knowledge and experiences, develop collaborations, identify common priorities and build regional capacity for research and evidence-informed policy.

Our approach is to connect and strengthen existing networks, rather than create parallel structures. By linking regional and sub-regional networks with one another through a wider “network of networks”, we can facilitate learning across contexts while ensuring that regional voices and expertise remain at the centre. This creates opportunities for regions to learn from one another, adapt approaches to their own contexts and collectively contribute to the global evidence base on school health and nutrition.

In this blog, we feature six networks representing some of the regional collaborations emerging within the Global Academy. As these networks grow, we hope to create more opportunities for Academy members to connect, collaborate and share learning across geographies and disciplines.

African Technical Working Group on School Health and Nutrition

Leads: Robert Akparibo (University of Ghana / University of Sheffield) and Robert Fungo (Makerere University)

The African Technical Working Group on School Health and Nutrition (ATWG) was officially launched at the Research Consortium’s regional workshop held in Addis Ababa in July 2026. The network brings together researchers in a complex landscape marked by fragmented multisectoral coordination – education, health, agriculture, and social protection – limited sustainable funding, inconsistent policy implementation across countries, and gaps in data and monitoring systems.

The ATWG will explore potential solutions to some of challenges facing school meals in Africa, including supporting efforts towards diversifying funding beyond donors (e.g., national budget lines, public-private partnerships); enhancing meal acceptability through local sourcing and community involvement; strengthening monitoring and data systems for better targeting; and leveraging cross-network learning to adapt proven capacity-building and policy integration models from the Nordic-Baltic region.

Amos Laar, Professor of Public Health Nutrition at the University of Ghana and a founding member of the ATWG, commented:

“Africa’s children are the seeds of its future leadership; to nourish their bodies and minds is to nourish the continent itself. The African Technical Working Group on School Health and Nutrition is an important opportunity to bring together African expertise, strengthen collaboration and enable countries to learn from one another. School meal programmes in the 21st century must not merely feed children, but nourish them, and must do so within planetary boundaries.”

Nordic-Baltic Network

Leads: Kristiina Janhonen, Maijaliisa Erkkola and Riikka Pajulahti (University of Helsinki)

The Nordic–Baltic School Meals Network (SMN) brings together researchers, policymakers and practitioners across the Nordic and Baltic countries to support and feed into the broader global school meals community, while particularly strengthening networking and research collaboration within the Global North context. It focuses on developing inclusive, resilient and sustainable school meal systems that support children’s health and wellbeing, while sharing knowledge and practical solutions across countries.

The network currently includes members from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Iceland, the Åland Islands and the Faroe Islands, working together across a range of shared priorities, including nutrition, sustainability, food waste, procurement, food education, inclusion and resilience to crises and food insecurity.

Kristiina Janhonen, Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki and co-coordinator of the Nordic Baltic School Meals Network, commented:

“I was once told that comparing school meal systems across countries was not worthwhile, but I could not disagree more. Our vision in the Nordic-Baltic School Meals Network is to demonstrate how learning from our differences and shared challenges can spark new knowledge, inspire future experts, and strengthen school meal systems. Relating to other regional networks through the Research Consortium expands this learning globally, connecting us to share solutions to common challenges and opportunities.”

Brazil Network

Lead: Alessandra da Silva Pereira (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro)

The Brazil school feeding research network, known as 'REDPAE', includes school meals researchers from nine universities located in all regions of Brazil. Established earlier this year, the network has already formed partnerships with four institutions in the wider Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. It aims to share and distil learnings from across the world’s second-largest school meals programme, advancing progress both within Brazil and across the wider region.

Alessandra da Silva Pereira, Associate Professor at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro and REDPAE lead, commented:

"Connecting different groups of researchers that work with school meals programmes in Brazil and the LAC region is an important strategy to unify and expand research developing in different institutions, enabling us to connect different territories and leverage regional specificities to drive local action. REDPAE and our partners in LAC, together with other networks, will collaborate to generate evidence and develop and implement more sustainable approaches that can inform and strengthen public policy".

Pacific School Food Network

Leads: Sarah Burkhart (University of the Sunshine Coast), Pragya Singh (Fiji National University), Danny Hunter (Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT), and Jessica Raneri (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research)

The Pacific School Food Network brings together stakeholders from across the food system, including primary producers, educators, and nutrition and health experts, to strengthen school food and nutrition across Pacific Island Countries. Formed in 2019 by a small group of Pacific school feeding advocates, the network aims to support advocacy and the development of initiatives that improve food and nutrition education and create healthier school food environments.

The network responds to an urgent need across the region, where rates of childhood overweight and obesity are among the highest globally. By connecting expertise across the food system, the network seeks to support locally relevant action to improve the food environments in which Pacific children learn, eat and grow.

India Network

Lead: Mohan Kumar (MSSRF)

The India school meals network was formed through the Nutrition Society of India and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) and is focused on advancing the nutrition of school-aged children in the region and advocating for the importance of good nutrition from ages 2 to 21, known as the “next 7,000 days”. The Indian Council for Medical Research is developing a new Centre for Advanced Research on Nutrition, including school meals, across 11 institutions. Together, these efforts provide an important and growing platform for advancing research on school-age nutrition and the role of school meals in supporting health and development across India.

Central Asia Network

Secretariat: Ministry of Health, Tajikistan / Karan Courtney Haag, UNICEF Istanbul

The Central Asia Network is part of the Caucasus and Central Asia Regional Platform on Partnership and Capacity-Building in Nutrition (RNPP), an initiative supported by UNICEF and involving governments from eight countries across the region. The network includes Global Academy members based in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

How to get involved

If you’d like to get involved in one of the regional networks featured here, please contact the Research Consortium team at [email protected]. If you haven’t already, please join our Global Academy first to connect with colleagues working across school health and nutrition and explore opportunities to get involved in a regional network.