**We are currently accepting applications for the 2025 Summer Research Institute. Applications are due March 1. Click here for more details on the application, or email Emily Barbour (ebarbour@uvm.edu) for more information.** 

At the Climate Kitchen Summer Research Institute, UVM researchers and collaborators work with the Climate Kitchen team to investigate challenges and opportunities at the intersection of food systems and climate change. If we want to stay within planetary boundaries, provide human nourishment and achieve health equity, we need to link broad, abstract goals and measures with our everyday realities and actions. The CK Summer Institute supports researchers in developing emergent approaches, integrating design thinking, and considering the practicalities of everyday food preparation and preferences.

The 2025 Summer Institute will provide the tools and resources for you (and your collaborators) to explore your ideas. The Summer Institute will run from May 19th to August 8, 2025, and will include:

• A 3-day introductory workshop for all team members (May 19th – May 21st) that integrates the principles of design thinking, the Climate Kitchen sustainability tenets and practical sensory and culinary skills to promote relevant and innovative research strategies
• A commitment of 7 or more days of work (or the equivalent) in the Climate Kitchen/Foods Lab over the summer to pursue your ideas
• A presentation at the end of the summer to share your process and discoveries
• Funding for faculty (1-2 weeks of summer salary), graduate students (up to 10 hours a week in research pay), undergraduate students (up to 70 total hours summer employment), and equipment and supplies (up to $3,000 for equipment and $1,500 for supplies)
• Support for 2-4 teams (teams should include 2-5 members and may include undergraduate students, but undergraduate students may not be the team lead)

The first annual Summer Climate Kitchen Research Institute was held from June 3-August 15, 2024. Three interdisciplinary teams (including faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as in one case, community members), worked in the Foods Lab on inquiry-based projects. The Climate Kitchen team supported these projects throughout the summer. These projects had an (unexpectedly) shared theme: the potential and sensory characteristics of three alternative protein sources - mung beans, meal worms, and cellular meat. This work led to a submission of a USDA Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research grant for further research on mealworm flour and product development, one of the projects hosted by the Climate Kitchen Research Institute.

The Climate Kitchen Summer Institute is funded by the Food Systems Research Center.

The Climate Kitchen sponsors courses at the undergraduate and graduate level that teach students necessary skills and concepts – in kitchens and beyond - that can address individual and planetary health. 

The Climate Kitchen courses integrate the sustainability tenets of the Climate Kitchen throughout the curriculum: plant forward, integrating tastes and habits, low waste, whole food utilization and regional/local sourcing. The undergraduate course, Foods for Planetary Health, combines in-person lectures and labs and is offered by the Nutrition and Food Sciences department. The graduate course, Cooking for Individual and Planetary Health, is an all-online course.

The Climate Kitchen, in collaboration with the Culinary Medicine program at UVM Medical Center and the Osher Center for Integrative Health, has developed learning modules that explore key concepts for future professionals in nutrition and health science that will be used across University of Vermont and University of Vermont Medical Center.