About us

Welcome to the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development. We are world leaders in teaching and research in the natural and social sciences relating to agriculture, the food chain, rural environments and the countryside and international development. Our work covers the businesses and people associated with these sectors (such as food and agribusiness, rural livelihoods, communities and consumers), and the policy and political environments in which they function locally, nationally, regionally and globally.

Our School, located in a state of the art building for teaching, learning and research on the Whiteknights campus, houses our Departments of Agriculture and of Food Economics and Marketing, and the Graduate Institute of International Development and Applied Economics (GIIDAE). Many of our specialist research centres are also located here or on our farms nearby. Our teaching, research, support and farms staff number about 130.

We offer a wide range of both undergraduate and postgraduate taught degree programmes as well as Higher Degrees by Research. We have a cosmopolitan student body of almost 500 UK and International students (250-300 undergraduates, around 100 taught postgraduates, and over 100 postgraduate research students), typically from over 40 countries. In our subject area, we are consistently ranked as having teaching of the highest quality by numerous newspaper university subject ratings and by student surveys. Our undergraduate, taught postgraduate and postgraduate research degrees have an international reputation for high quality.

Our research is applied to:

• Food and Health
• Sustainability (Environmental, Social and Economic)
• Adapting to Environmental Change

These dynamic and overlapping areas are addressed by the 46 staff in the School submitted to RAE 2008. Forty-five percent of our outputs were rated as either world leading or internationally excellent. The University of Reading submission to the Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Science panel is ranked 5th out of 30 submissions analysed in the Research Fortnight measure of "Research Power". Reading is the UK's top university for impact in Agricultural Sciences research (ISI Web of Knowledge, Essential Science Indicators).

Our research informs our teaching, and we are part of a national Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Applied Undergraduate Research Skills (CETL-AURS) which provides a range of research opportunities to undergraduate students.