Professor Tom MacMillan

Biography

Elizabeth Creak Chair in Rural Policy and Strategy.

Professor MacMillan's role focuses on enabling strategic approaches land, farming and food systems in policy and research. He is academic lead for the RAU’s Innovation Village project.

Tom is a founding Director of the Centre for Effective Innovation in Agriculture (CEIA) and Deputy Director of The National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE). With CEIA colleagues he supports the Agricultural Universities Council. He is expert advisor to the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission and was one of the team who supported Henry Dimbleby to develop the National Food Strategy. He a trustee of the Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust.

Tom joined us from the Soil Association, where he was Director of Innovation. There, he founded the Innovative Farmers network, which supports practical 'field labs' by farmers and led an overhaul of organic standards.

From 2003-2011 he was Executive Director of the Food Ethics Council, which received the BBC Food & Farming Derek Cooper Award for its Food & Fairness Inquiry. He has served on various advisory groups and boards, including for the Cabinet Office Food Matters report, ScienceWise, the BBSRC, Sustain and the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership.

He has a PhD in geography from the University of Manchester, where he investigated the use and abuse of science in food regulation.

Research

Keywords: Land use, Food policy, Farmer-led innovation, Strategy

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2893-6981

Current research projects include:

National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE), funded by Research England Development Fund
Agri-food for Net Zero Network+, funded by EPSRC
Land Use for Net Zero (LUNZ) Hub, funded by Defra, UK and cross-government partners
Centre for Effective Innovation in Agriculture (CEIA), funded by the Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust
Teaching Transformation: strengthening higher education in agriculture, funded by the Aurora Trust
Agricultural Researchers of the Future, funded by the Sylvia Waddilove Foundation
Land Climate Research Programme, with Eunomia for Defra/DESNZ
Skills for Farmer-Led Research, funded by the Rothschild Foundation
Shifts in skills and behaviour in the transition from agriculture to nature-based recovery (PhD studentship – Josh Davis), funded by Evolution Education Trust

Previous research projects include:

Cultured Meat and Farmers, funded by UKRI Transforming UK Food Systems
UK Farmer Research Priorities, funded by Innovate UK and CEIA
Joint Research Strategy for the AUC, funded by CEIA
Cellular Agriculture Research & Manufacturing Hubv (CARMA), funded by EPSRC (RAU lead role transferred to Atenchong Talleh-Nkobou)
Backcasting to Achieve Food Resilience in the UK (BAFR-UK), funded by
BBSRC (RAU lead role transferred to Karen Rial-Lovera)
Farmer Co-operation in the UK, Co-ops UK

Current PhD Students:

Paul Rous
Josh Davis (CCRI)

Trustee, Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust
Expert Advisor, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission
Advisory Board, The Food Conversation
Steering Group, Innovative Farmers
Expert Advisory Group, Agri-tech Infrastructure Project (Innovate UK)

Biography

Programme leader