Who is the Family Meals Collective?

In 2023, four PhD students across Australia and France came together to write an article for The Conversation about their complementary research on Family Meals. Their discussions, passions and shared interest in this field of research sparked a desire for ongoing connection and collaboration – along with expansion – surely there were more people doing fabulous work in this space who we could connect with!

And thus, the Family Meals Collective was born. Reaching out to local networks at first, the Collective doubled from 4 members to 8 in 2023. In the years following, the Collective continued to grow through word of mouth, formal networking and conference presentations. By 2026, the Collective had grown to 20 researchers across 8 countries.

Our international network of researchers come from diverse backgrounds with a variety of expertise, but we all share an interest in understanding, improving, and re-imagining the ways families and people share and connect over meals. The Collective allows us to build connections, exchange ideas, share current research, and foster new collaborations in the field of family meal research.

The Collective’s primary aim is to provide a collaborative platform for advancing research on family meals and their role in health, wellbeing, relationships, and everyday family life. By connecting researchers across countries and disciplines, we seek to stimulate innovative thinking, support knowledge sharing, and develop joint research projects that can strengthen the evidence base around family meals.

To date, we have published 2 articles for The Conversation, collaborated on several research grants, published 2 peer-reviewed articles, worked on 4 joint projects, hosted a Family Meals Symposium at an international conference, and been invited as consultants onto several external projects. Through these activities, the Collective is helping to build research capacity and promote coordinated action in this area.

We are always looking for new members and researchers to connect with, whether you’re an undergraduate student interested in pursuing an Honours, Masters or PhD in this space, a current PhD student, an ECR or established academic – we’d love for you to join our Collective and share your thoughts, ideas and passion with us.

*written by Georgia Middleton and Eloise Litterbach