LIDC research initiatives bring together sectoral and disciplinary experience from its different Colleges to address international development problems. New initiatives arise at the inspiration of LIDC members or partners, or through LIDC workshops which bring together different research communities around a development issue for purposes of research collaboration. Well-established research collaborations become LIDC Research Themes that encompass  individual research projects. 

Theme 1. Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases (EZD)

Infectious diseases of humans and animals are a major problem for human welfare and economic development in poor countries. Because most emerging human pathogens are of animal origin this means that zoonotic diseases (caused by infectious agents transmitted between animals and humans) pose a shared problem between the human and animal health sectors, and their control must be a shared objective.

LIDC facilitates interdisciplinary approaches to studying emerging and zoonotic diseases. It brings together the expertise of biomedical, veterinary, sociological and economic  researchers in its member Colleges to take a holistic view of how natural and social environments affect the emergence, spread, and consequences of these diseases. 

Theme 2. Linking Agriculture and Health Research

In our rapidly changing world, an intuitive, simple and positive relationship between the production of food, its consumption and the generation of human health is proving to be neither intuitive nor simple, nor always positive. Decoupled policies and systems for agriculture and health are delivering low price food energy but are clearly not responding adequately to present global nutrition and health needs. The Millennium Development Goals to eliminate hunger and malnutrition-related deaths are falling badly behind target in some regions, while at the same time obesity and chronic diseases are soaring.

LIDC is using a new paradigm, Agri-Health, to establish a unifying approach and methodology for understanding the relationships between agricultural production and population health, and the factors which drive them both. This interdisciplinary initiative brings together research groups working on agricultural production; nutrition and public health; political and cultural dimensions of agriculture, food and health; and global change processes.