A three-day intensive training in transdisciplinary and participatory methods for tackling antimicrobial resistance in agrifood systems. Built for early career professionals and researchers.
Explore the programmeThe AMAST (AntiMicrobial resistance in Agrifood Systems Transdisciplinary) Network College brings together early career professionals and researchers from veterinary science, environmental science, social science, microbiology, policy, and beyond - to learn how to work across disciplinary boundaries on one of the defining challenges in global health.
"About 30% of UK antibiotics treat farm animals - the problem of resistance is shaped by biology, economics, behaviour, culture, and environment all at once."
This resource captures the training methods, frameworks, and concepts from the inaugural college. Whether you attended or not, you can use it to understand and apply these approaches in your own research.
Going beyond putting disciplines side by side - genuinely integrating scientific, practitioner, and community knowledge to co-produce solutions.
Designing research with farmers and stakeholders, not on them. Shared power over questions, methods, and outputs.
Seeing AMR as an interconnected problem shaped by feedback loops, trade-offs, and dynamics that no single intervention can fix alone.
Built specifically to develop the generation of professionals and researchers who will carry AMR research and science forward - with mentorship, funding, and network connections.
Each activity prepares participants for the next. The learning architecture moves from individual perspective → shared understanding → collaborative creation.
Participants arrive as individuals from different disciplines. By the end of Day 1 they share a common language for AMR as a complex systems problem and have identified potential collaborators.
Speaker: Emeritus Prof. Steve Rushton - Newcastle University
Using Campylobacter as a 30-year case study, this keynote demonstrated what systems modelling in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment actually looks like in practice. Key insight: AMR modelling requires integrating processes across biological, spatial, and temporal scales - from individual bacteria to national populations - and no single discipline can do this alone.
Participants left understanding why AMR in agrifood systems is a "super wicked problem": the biology, the food chain, human behaviour, the environment, and economics are all entangled in feedback loops that resist simple solutions.
🔑 Builds: Conceptual foundation for systems thinkingFacilitator: Mahmoud Eltholth - Royal Holloway, University of London
Groups of 6–7 rotate through three 15-minute rounds, each person sharing their role for 1 minute then working through a structured question together. The activity repeats on Day 2 with harder questions, ensuring every participant meets every other participant across the two days.
Round 1: "What question are you hoping to explore this week?"
Round 2: "Share a recent 'aha moment' from your research or practice"
Round 3: "What method from your field could help solve AMR?"
Participants note who they want to work with and why - used on Day 2 and 3 to form proposal groups.
🔑 Builds: Cross-disciplinary awareness; potential collaborator identificationSpeaker: Marie McIntyre - Newcastle University
A compact but important conceptual framing: what is the difference between multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research? The transdisciplinary approach is not just about putting disciplines side by side - it requires genuine integration of scientific, practitioner, and community knowledge to co-produce solutions that work within society. It is cyclical, not linear, and always involves iterative stakeholder engagement.
Key distinction: the "trans" part means going beyond academic institutions into communities and the broader environment, and co-designing rather than consulting after the fact.
🔑 Builds: Shared conceptual vocabulary for the rest of the CollegeFacilitator: Lisa Morgans - Royal Agricultural University
Small group mapping (40 minutes): Groups of 6–8 receive large poster paper and coloured markers. Task: map all the factors influencing antimicrobial use in their sector - stakeholders, economic pressures, regulations, knowledge gaps, social norms, environmental conditions. Draw connections. Ask: where would interventions work, and where would they fail?
Gallery walk (20 minutes): Groups post maps on walls. Participants add post-its connecting patterns across maps ("this affects that!"). Identify common patterns and surprising gaps.
Synthesis (15 minutes): Facilitators highlight key systems thinking insights. These maps become reference material for Day 2 and Day 3 proposal development.
🔑 Builds: Visual practice in systems thinking; shared reference artefactsBy end of Day 1 participants: Understand AMR as complex and systemic; recognise each discipline is one piece; have started identifying potential collaborators; hold a shared vocabulary for the work ahead.
Day 2 shifts from understanding to doing. Participants learn how to actually work across boundaries - with stakeholders (Participatory Action Research) and across disciplines (Transdisciplinary Research Design) - through real cases, a farm visit, and hands-on workshops.
Matt Gilmour - Quadram Institute Bioscience
Concrete examples of what participatory AMR research looks like in practice: the pig industry's 60% AMU reduction journey, engagement with game bird farmers, work with a major UK ready-to-eat food business. Key lesson: these projects work because they start with the question "what problem do you want to solve?" rather than leading with the science. The AMAST network acts as an honest broker between farmers/vets and regulators/innovators who don't naturally connect.
🔑 Builds: Inspiration and reality-check for own proposalsFacilitator: Mahmoud Eltholth - Royal Holloway, University of London
The second tranche of Collaboration Superpower rounds, with harder, more revealing questions designed to surface complementary expertise and genuine tensions:
Round 4: "What's one thing about AMR in your discipline that surprises people?"
Round 5: "What assumption in your field needs challenging?"
Round 6: "What's a challenge in your work that another discipline might solve?"
Speaker: Lisa Morgans (RAU) - Royal Agricultural University
A candid, case-study-driven talk on what participatory research with farmers actually looks like - the wins, the failures, and the hard-won lessons. Drawing on a decade of work across dairy, sheep, game bird, and international farming systems.
Core lessons: listen before you speak; find common ground on the farmer's terms; use benchmarking data in the language that resonates (often money); peer-to-peer learning between farmers outperforms researcher-to-farmer knowledge transfer; and managing gatekeepers is as important as managing the research itself.
🔑 Builds: Practical skills for stakeholder engagement; grounds proposals in realityFritha Langford, Dave George & James Standen - Newcastle University
A hands-on visit to the university's Cockle Park Farm - livestock AMR tour with young beef cattle, followed by a Q&A with the farm manager on the realities of working with researchers: the tension between research timelines and farming timelines, what a research farm can and cannot do, and what farmers and practitioners actually want from AMR research partnerships.
This is the Kolb Cycle in action: concrete experience that grounds all the theoretical frameworks in physical reality. Participants who visited often described this as one of the most perspective-shifting parts of the programme.
🔑 Builds: Direct real-world exposure; farmer/practitioner perspectiveFacilitator: Lisa Morgans - Royal Agricultural University · KEY SKILL: Working WITH stakeholders
Groups receive a realistic AMR scenario and a structured PAR Framework Template. The central question: how would you do this with stakeholders, not on them? Groups work through four dimensions: Who (partners vs stakeholders, and why those and not others?), What (co-developing questions, methods, and non-academic outputs), How (trust, power-sharing, recognising contributions, accessibility), and Challenges (practical barriers, tensions, mitigation strategies).
The PAR Framework Template from this session is available in the Frameworks section below.
🔑 KEY SKILL: Authentic collaboration designFacilitator: Matt Gilmour + All - Quadram Institute Bioscience · KEY SKILL: Working ACROSS disciplines
Small group exercises identifying AMR challenges across sectors (pig, ruminant, poultry, aquaculture, crops, game birds, cross-sector) and formulating research questions that genuinely require multiple disciplines to answer. Groups then begin forming for collaborative proposal development: identifying a specific problem from each disciplinary perspective, finding commonality and divergence, and using systems thinking to place themselves on the problem map.
🔑 KEY SKILL: Discipline-to-discipline integrationBy end of Day 2 participants have: Methods for both PAR and transdisciplinary research design; draft research questions; identified collaborators; direct experience of the farm context their research will ultimately serve.
Day 3 is about synthesis and tangible outputs. Groups present proposals, learn futures thinking and communication strategies, and leave with concrete next steps, new collaborators, and connections to funding and mentorship networks.
All Facilitators
Final working session to develop group proposals using a business model canvas-inspired planning tool: What is the real system pain? What is the scientific differentiator? Who will actually adopt the output - and how do you know? What are the barriers? What does return on investment look like? Facilitators circulate providing feedback. Groups can use their Day 1 systems maps and Day 2 PAR/TD frameworks as inputs. The actual AMAST application form is provided for groups to draft against.
🔑 Builds: Integrates ALL prior learning into a tangible outputChair: Marie McIntyre - Newcastle University
Each group presents their transdisciplinary research proposal (15 minutes each) followed by peer feedback and constructive discussion. Proposals can take any format - PowerPoint, a conversation, a poem, a performed scenario - but must also be captured in written form.
🔑 Builds: Communication skills; peer learning; constructive feedback practiceJanice Spencer - Glasgow Caledoninan University - FAN Network
An introduction to the Futures AMR Network (FAN), AMAST's sister network, combined with futures thinking: how to anticipate system changes and prepare research approaches for an uncertain landscape. Includes an interactive live poll on ECR needs, barriers, and what would most accelerate AMR research - results fed directly into FAN's AMR Blueprint work on supporting early career researcher career development.
🔑 Builds: Long-term thinking; network connections; policy voiceSeema Biswas - Royal Holloway, University of London
Drawing on experience as a field surgeon in the humanitarian sector, journal editor, and communicator, this session covered how to communicate research across the four audiences that matter most: the press and media, funders, academic journals, and the general public. Core message: changing someone's perspective is the hardest and most important task. Each audience requires a different entry point - and the goal is always to get people inside your tent before trying to persuade them.
Groups worked in tables to develop communication strategies for each audience, then shared across the room.
🔑 Builds: Communication skills for diverse audiencesFacilitator: Lisa Morgans - Royal Agricultural University
Structured reflective practice to consolidate learning and commit to next steps. Three questions:
💎 Pearls - What wisdom have you gained that you'll carry forward?
🧩 Puzzles - What questions are you still holding? What remains unresolved?
🚀 Proposals - What would you do differently? What could be developed further?
Can be verbal or physical (posters around the room). Followed by closing remarks, feedback collection, and departure arrangements.
🔑 Builds: Reflective practice; metacognition; sustained engagementParticipants leave with: A draft research proposal concept; new cross-disciplinary collaborators; practical skills in PAR and transdisciplinary research design; connections with AMAST and FAN networks and access to flexible funding.
The College teaches two complementary approaches - one for working with people outside academia, one for integrating knowledge across disciplines.
PAR means designing research with farmers and stakeholders, not on them. It is action-orientated: there is an implied intent to change practices, not just understand them. The researcher is embedded in the system they are trying to change.
A transdisciplinary question cannot be answered from one discipline alone. It requires genuine integration - not disciplines placed side by side, but knowledge systems genuinely combined to produce something none could reach alone. It is about combining aspects of multiple disciplines, and including stakeholders to co-develop research solutions.
Before you can change a system, you need to see it. Systems mapping makes the invisible visible: the feedback loops, the stakeholders, the economic pressures, the unintended consequences. Tools like concept mapping, fuzzy cognitive mapping, and participatory farm-walk mapping all serve this purpose.
Getting published is the start, not the end. Each audience requires a different entry point. The goal is always the same: change how someone understands something. This requires empathy, preparation, and a single clear message.
These are the actual frameworks given to participants. Use them to design your own research.
Use this to design research with farmers, not on them. Work through the four dimensions below for your specific AMR research scenario.
How is this different from how you might have designed this research before today?
What shifts in mindset does participatory research require from you, specifically?
A transdisciplinary question cannot be answered from just one perspective. Use this framework to develop a question that requires integration across disciplines.
A good integrated problem statement draws on A NUMBER of disciplinary perspectives in your group. Try using this structure:
How did your initial question change as you heard other disciplinary perspectives?
Could any single discipline in your group answer this question alone?
The learning architecture follows Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle and progressive complexity - each activity builds deliberately on the last.
The farm visit, systems mapping, and meeting diverse participants give people something tangible to think from before asking them to think about abstract frameworks.
Day 1: Understand → Identify → Describe. Day 2: Analyse → Apply → Integrate. Day 3: Create → Evaluate → Reflect. You cannot skip ahead.
The 'Collaboration Superpower' repeats across Days 1 and 2 with different prompts - ensuring every participant meets every other, with progressively deeper questions.
Visual (maps, posters), Auditory (keynotes, discussions), Kinesthetic (farm visit, gallery walks), and Reading/Writing (templates, proposal development) - all present.
Forming cross-disciplinary proposals with strangers, without the right stakeholders in the room, is hard. That discomfort mirrors the real experience of building transdisciplinary research.
Participants leave with a draft proposal. The AMAST flexible fund means strong ideas from the College can become real projects.
UKRI funded eight transdisciplinary networks to tackle Antimicrobial Resistance. Explore their website for opportunities that support early career professionals and researchers in AMR, with flexible funding, mentorship, training, and events.
Antimicrobial Resistance in Agrifood Systems Transdisciplinary Network
The Network coordinates the agrifood transdisciplinary community engaged in AMR activities covering crop, livestock, aquaculture sectors. The Network engages with industry, trade associations, policy makers, and academia.
Sister network focused on ECR career development. Mentorship scheme, training events, writing retreats, AMR Blueprint work. Queen's University Belfast–led.
Accurate, Rapid, Robust and Economicsl One Health Diagnostics for AMR
The Network coordinates and develops practical solutions for diganostics in both animals and plants, across various settings.
Climate Change Impacts on AMR Using Planteary Health Framework
Focused on the relationship between AMR, climate change, pollution, biodiversity, and other drivers captured by the planetary boundaries concept.
Fungal One Health and Antimicrobial Resistance Network
F1AMR focuses on the emergence of anti-fungal resistance and the development of countermeasures to it. It covers healthcare, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, government departments and end users.
Improve the use of evidence to inform prioritisation decisions intending to reduce AMR burden.
The IMPACT AMR Network will connect those with experience, expertise and responsibility for AMR interventions with a shared goal of prioritising efforts to minimise the burden of AMR.
How communities might use antibiotics in the best possible ways to minimise AMR thorugh changing behaviour
What the PEOPLE stands for: develoPing and Evaluating multi-faceted evidence-based interventions to prOmote Prudent antimicrobiaL use in community contExts.
Transdisciplinary Antimicrobial Resistance Genomics Network
Mission to build a national research network to enhance the use of AMR genomics to improve surveillance and diagnostics, and inform prevention and treatment strategies for drug-resistant infections.