How our research

Northumbria conducts ground-breaking, high-quality research that is responsive to the needs of global communities. Our research has real impact. It changes people’s lives and helps businesses gain an edge over their competitors. It educates the next generation of global graduates and it pushes the boundaries of design, engineering, health and technology – to name a few of our areas of expertise – while contributing to social policy and government agendas.

Northumbria University News highlights a few examples of how our research is having a global impact…

How eating breakfast improves children’s performance in school

Hundreds of school breakfast clubs have been established across the UK, resulting in a measurable increase in children’s attainment and quality of life, thanks to research from Northumbria’s Healthy Living research unit.

Working in partnership with Kellogg’s, Northumbria psychologists investigated the effect of breakfast club attendance and breakfast consumption on children’s behaviour, cognitive performance and social friendships.

They found that children who attended school breakfast clubs integrated better into their school community and had more positive attitudes towards their peers and teachers than other children.

Their findings were translated into the UK’s first online training programme for teachers, governors, NHS Public Health Advisors and parent volunteers, resulting in the development of more than 200 breakfast clubs across the UK. Teachers who established breakfast clubs in their schools as a result have reported gains in attendance, punctuality, motivation and quality of life of many of the children involved.

Thanks to Northumbria’s research, Blackpool Council decided to invest £1.3 million to fund universal free breakfast club provision for all primary school children in 2013/14.

Professor Greta Defeyter, the Director of Northumbria’s Healthy Living research unit, and lead researcher on breakfast clubs, is a member of several advisory panels including the All Party Parliamentary Group on School Food. She regularly advises government, industry and academia of the importance of breakfast clubs and the consumption of breakfast on educational performance, nutrition, social behaviours and community cohesion.

Speaking about the impact of this research, Professor Defeyter commented: “I am delighted that the impact from our innovative research has assisted schools to develop and deliver breakfast to thousands of hungry children every day of the school week. The continued success of ‘Healthy Living’ has enabled my research team to lay the foundations for new, broader and exciting research investigating holiday hunger in children. As a key stakeholder, we are currently preparing a policy briefing on holiday hunger for Parliament.”

Beating online criminals

We spend so much of our lives online that many of us assume it is safe. In fact, online security is always under threat and sophisticated programs and systems are needed to maintain the integrity of the online infrastructure that we take for granted.