Families and food in hard times (FFP)

Little comparative research documents how food practices are negotiated in low-income families, children's and young people's perspectives of food poverty, and how it affects their lives. The FFP case study addresses these issues in a European research project examining Food and families in hard times, funded under the European Research Council's starting grants scheme. From a base in a UK research unit specialising in policy-relevant research on children and families in different national settings, the coordinator and her team applied a mixed-method international comparative design to study household food poverty in the UK, Norway and Portugal. By tracking the different stages in the process from the application for funding, through the selection of partners, research design and methods, to the dissemination of findings, the case study shows how the funding enabled the principal investigator, in particular, to develop her research skills, publication record and international reputation.