The Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences drives, funds, and leads actionable research and elevates food safety and nutritional sciences—all with the ultimate goal of advancing public health. 

IAFNS accomplishes its mission through our scientific committees.

  • Our scientific committees fund independent researchers and convene workshops and symposiums.

Scientists from government, industry, and academia work in committees to identify knowledge gaps and brainstorm ideas for research projects that will provide benefit to the health of the public.

  • Reports from regulatory agencies and other authoritative bodies often serve as a source of reference at this brainstorming stage.

These committee members prioritize projects and reach a consensus on which idea to develop into a research plan. The research plan is reviewed to ensure it can meet our Scientific Integrity requirements and that it addresses issues of broad public health interests.

After the research plan has been approved by the Board of Trustees Program Committee – a Committee comprised of a majority of public sector scientists – research proposals are obtained in response to a publicly shared Requests of Proposals (RFP).

Committee scientists from government, industry, and academia review each proposal and reach consensus on which to fund. The selected researcher, the Principal Investigator (PI), then maintains complete control over the entire research process.

  • Funding to the PI is not contingent upon achieving a specific research outcome.
  • All results, no matter the outcome, are published in scientific peer-reviewed journals.
  • IAFNS pays for Open Access for each publication to ensure findings are accessible to the public.

We embed scientific integrity into every step of our research process.

IAFNS Process Diagram 08102021

See Our Work

View nutrition science and food safety projects funded by IAFNS.

Scientific Integrity

See all of IAFNS's work in scientific integrity.