IEHCA European Institute for The History and Cultures of Food
Ever since it was founded, the European Institute of Food History and Cultures (IEHCA) has combined many different approaches, providing a forum for cooperation and communication between top-level international researchers. This has enabled it to pursue multiple objectives: multidisciplinary research, popular science initiatives, and developing synergies with companies and public authorities.
In the field of education and training, the IEHCA naturally partners with the Université de Tours which offers a number of food-related postgraduate and vocational diplomas. These cover a wide range of topics—including health, the food industry, and food culture—and are available as initial, continuing, and distance courses. More specifically, the IEHCA is associated with the master’s degree in Food Heritage and Culture, most of which is taught at the Villa Rabelais.
Additionally, the institute holds a summer academy on food culture, attended each year by young researchers and professors from all over the world.
The IEHCA has established a number of key missions, structured around complementary axes:
- Encouraging the production of knowledge
- Helping disseminate this knowledge
- Boosting understanding and knowledge of European research through better sharing of findings
- Stimulating the most promising ideas
- Reflecting the diversity of methods, areas, regions, and societies
- Ensuring constructive interdisciplinary exchange between researchers
Since 2019, the IEHCA has been conducting most of its activities as part of a Thematic Research Network set up by the Centre-Val de Loire region for the period 2019-2023. This network is an offshoot of the Université de Tours’ Food Hub, run by Regis Hankard, Professor of Paediatrics at the Tours Region University Hospital, whose multidisciplinary research team works in twenty or so fields focusing on a cross-disciplinary approach to food and nutrition.
Bruno Laurioux, Professor of the History of Food and the Middle Ages at the University of Tours, is the scientific coordinator for the thematic research network.
This network seeks to boost transdisciplinary research into food and nutrition by bringing together stakeholders in the region. It promotes interaction between academic and non-academic partners to develop international collaborative research projects. By leveraging its various tools—including its editorial policy, research library, workspaces, and programme of scientific meetings—, the IEHCA helps lead and develop this regional dynamic.
