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Promoting Food Studies since 2006

   Food Systems and Sustainability   

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Our Story

Gustolab International has been actively educating on Food Systems and Sustainability since 2007, when academic interest in Food Studies was still in its infancy.

Since then, our programs have expanded to encompass academic fields beyond food, leading us to establish the Borromini Institute, the first school of sustainability in Rome. Alongside Gustolab, which offers courses, programs, and research regarding Food Studies, the Borromini Institute offers additional academic clusters and educational opportunities in Sustainable Urban StudiesHuman Rights and Social Justice, and Technology, Media and Design.

Our approach to education abroad is to make our study abroad locations a laboratory and classroom. Students enthusiastically say that participating in a Gustolab International program is an unparalleled experience, both academically and personally. Our students participate in daily life, wherever our programs are in the world.  They visit various neighborhoods, shops, restaurants, and markets, and are constantly immersed in a unique environment of investigation and discovery. Our courses are enriched with field work, special projects, workshops, excursions, and activities. Students share that the process of stepping outside of the familiar “comfort zone” of home, adapting to a new international context, allows them to gain valuable skill sets. It is a time of growth, broadening perspectives, and building future professional opportunities. 

For information on our programs, see Gustolab and the Borromini Institute website.

Our Values

Gustolab International programs are rigorously interdisciplinary.  They foster a critical curiosity that interconnects multiple perspectives, providing a more sophisticated understanding of food and human social systems.  

We live in a world with many challenges.  Our programs frame both the national and international contexts of our human food systems, interconnecting the complexities of food and social issues, such as human rights, migration, famine, sustainability, and environmental concerns.

We seek to develop in students a critical food studies sensibility, one that is nuanced and resilient, capable of transforming our human relationships with food systems and with one another.

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Our History

In 2006, Dr. Pier Alberto Merli, CEO of Gustolab International, initiated discussions with various study abroad offices, faculties, and departments worldwide about creating a program based in Italy that incorporated a food-focused component.  At that time, interest in what is now known as Food Studies was still far from the impressive growth that we can observe today, both in the U.S. and worldwide.

In 2007, Gustolab International Italy was founded, and the first Food and Culture Program of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was established in Rome, with 12 students participating. During the last two decades, students from other colleges and universities have attended semester, summer, and short-term programs.  In 2018, Gustolab International developed additional program sites in Japan and Vietnam.