The International Feed Resources Unit (IFRU) was started as a small group at the Rowett Institute in 1990. Professor James the Director felt that it was a very colourful group always with people from all over the world - in fact we have had about 150 people from more than 40 countries working with us in the last 10 years mainly from developing countries, Asia, Africa and South America. Professor James felt it should operate as a separate unit if possible and self-financing, doing research and training as indeed had been done for the 10 years previous to that.
Some people come to us for short-term studies, eg. two weeks to two months, some come for longer-term studies eg. two months to a year or post doctorate studies or sabbatical leave, some come for MSc or PhD projects.
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| Picture of IFRU's founding home: The Rowett Research Institute |
Mr Malcom Bruce MP(centre) opened the IFRU at the Rowett in 1990. Others on the picture: Prof. Hamish Keir, Prof. Phlip James (Director of the Rowett), Dr Xue Bin Chen and Dr Bob Orskov |
In year 2000 the Rowett Institute installed a new director and a new direction, mainly more on human nutrition and molecular biology. Our group whilst contributing scientifically with publication exceeding other groups in the Institute we were beginning to be seen to be out on a limb relative to the Rowett core projects. If we were to stay we would have to find funds for the facilities we used! It was at this stage that the Macaulay Land Use Institute was being encouraged to be more internationally orientated and so we were invited to move and we have always felt welcome here. The diversity of programmes here, the involvement of socio-economy etc. fitted right into our interest and our international work was supported. We still provide training as will be detailed later. We still do research. Above all our main direction is to work with research with relevance to developing countries and training in techniques relevant to developing countries in general and poverty alleviation in particular.
 IFRU's current home: The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute |
