Fair Trade at the University of Edinburgh

Research has highlighted the University's relationship with fair trade, continuing efforts to embed fair trade within teaching and research at the University.

The findings conveyed what academics at the University have previously researched on fair trade and what they are currently researching, as well as highlighting what is taught on fair trade across undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Why this research?

The University was the first Scottish university to gain Fairtrade status in 2004 and with the 10 year anniversary fast approaching the Fair Trade Steering Group (FSG) wanted to assess how embedded fair trade has become within the teaching and research of the University.

Supported by the Procurement Office, Sophie Whitehead has been working as part of the Careers Service's new summer student internship programme, Employ.ed on Campus.

Fair trade in teaching and research

Professor Michael Northcott, School of Divinity, has researched fair trade and Gracia Marin-Duran, School of Law is currently co-authoring two book chapters on fair trade.

A Masters student in the Business School is currently writing up a dissertation on Scotland as a Fairtrade Nation, and a Sociology PhD student has been researching fair trade consumerism.

Three Undergraduate courses were identified that included fair trade in the syllabus. The research findings highlighted the scope for further embedding fair trade in teaching an research.

Supporting fair trade

You can support fair trade by encouraging your department to buy Fairtrade products, such as tea and coffee. These products give the producer a fair price and assist development projects in communities throughout the developing world.

Find out more

For more information please use the contact details and links below.

This article was published on Aug 1, 2012