Cultivate: A multi-voiced forum for cellular agriculture in the UK.
Cultivate is a multi-voiced forum intended to support informed dialogue about the emergent field of cellular agriculture from UK perspectives. It was established in summer 2016 by a small interdisciplinary group of UK professionals working in the area. The group initially came together during a dialogue exercise with government that involved multiple visits to 10 Downing Street to discuss cultured meat (aka cell-based meat, clean meat, in vitro meat). Through these meetings the group decided to formalise their activities under the title Cultivate and expand their remit to contribute to events, maintain an online presence, and provide a focal point for UK cellular agriculture activity.
Cultivate
2025
July 8th at The Exchange, Birmingham
We are pleased to announce that Cultivate 25 will take place on Tuesday July 8th at The Exchange, Birmingham. Cultivate is the UK’s longest running cellular agriculture conference, having started in 2016. We are a multi-voiced forum for discussing cellular agriculture from UK perspectives.
CULITVATE 2025, 8th July, The Exchange, Birmingham.
Registration: https://shop.bham.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/college-of-social-sciences/school-of-social-policy/cultivate-25
Capacity in the room has an upper limit, so do register early to confirm your spot. Registration costs £25.
The event is interdisciplinary and cross-sector with private, academic, and third-sector engagement, and features talks and panels about the latest topics in the sector.
Provisional Schedule:
9.30 Arrive and registration
10.00 Welcome: Neil Stephens (Cultivate, University of Birmingham)
10.15 Industry panel: Jake Bell (Multus Media), Riley Jackson (Ivy Farm Technologies), Jonathan Rand (CPI) Chair: Alexandra Sexton (Cultivate, Durham University)
11.15 Coffee
11.45 Cultured meat in public:
-Jason Thomas (University of Aston): A recipe for success: predictors of cultivated meat provision by parents of children in primary and secondary school
-Naomi Hart (independent artist): Culturing Meat: Engaging with Art in the Flesh in Butcher's Row, Barnstaple
-Lensa Jotte (University of Birmingham): Food for Utopia, Contested in Ethiopia: Negotiating In Vitro Meat in the Cultural Geographies of the Oromo People in Borana and Yabello
Chair: Marianne Ellis (Cultivate, University of Bath)
12.40 Blitz poster presentations,
-Alice Johnson (Aston University): Mycelia, Myself and Meatballs
-Ekin Kosegil (University of Leeds): What Factors Affect Consumer Acceptance of Cultured Meat in the UK?
-Charlotte Knight (University of Nottingham): Myogenic differentiation conditions of pig embryonic stem cells
-Estere Seinkmane (Cell Ag UK, UCL): Cell Ag UK: a review of the year
-Alex Hartley (University of Nottingham & University of Bath): Edible hydrogel microcarrier with excellent biocompatibility and tuneability
Chair: Marianne Ellis
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Regulation in discussion: Joshua Ravenhill - Head of Cell-Cultivated Product Sandbox · Food Standards Agency, in discussion with Illtud Dunsford (Cultivate, Cellular Agriculture Ltd)
14.50 Coffee
15.20 Cultivated meat and risk, a dialogue: Petra Hanga (UCL), Mariela de Amstalden (University of Cambridge), Neil Stephens (Cultivate, University of Birmingham)
16.20 Wrap up and close
16.30 End
The Exchange is located in Centenary Square, a ten-minute walk from Birmingham’s New Street station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vEgyqfxVxAA5EHWk9
The event will last all day, 9.30-4.30, with catering included.
Many thanks,
The Cultivate team
(Illtud Dunsford, Marianne Ellis, Alexandra Sexton, Neil Stephens)
CELLULAR AGRICULTURE
Cellular Agriculture is a term referring to a collection of technologies seeking to produce consumables that are traditionally produced in livestock-based agriculture systems through other means such as fermentation or tissue engineering, with key examples including meat, milk, leather and egg. The definition of cellular agriculture remains mobile as new technologies emerge and new viewpoints on the technologies arise, and Cultivate acknowledge and examine this variability.
OUR AIM
Cultivate is important because it forms a UK space for professionals and interested parties in cellular agriculture to come together and discuss the technologies and their impact. Cellular agriculture promises much in terms of environmental, animal ethics, health and economic benefit, but it is vital that these issues are examined critically to assess likely outcomes in the environment and society.
In 2018 the Cultivate founders published a peer-reviewed open access academic paper reviewing cellular agriculture with a specific focus on cultured meat. The paper is an expanded and revised update of a policy document that Cultivate members provided to the UK government. It is available here: Bringing cultured meat to market: Technical, socio-political, and regulatory challenges in cellular agriculture.
A second paper was published in 2020 and is available here: Cellular agriculture in the UK: a review.
And a third paper was published in 2022, and is available here: The triple bottom line framework can connect people, planet and profit in cellular agriculture.
Cultivate runs a public LinkedIn group. UK cellular agriculture stakeholders are welcome to request to join.
EVENTS
8th July 2025: Cultivate 2025. The Exchange, Birmingham.
12th June 2024: Cultivate 2024. Millennium Gallery, Sheffield.
20th June 2023: Cultivate 2023. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, Bath.
12th May 2022: Cultivate 2022. The Exchange, Birmingham.
13th July 2021: Cultivate Summer Panel Session. Via Zoom.
17th December 2020: Cultivate 2020. Via Zoom.
26th November 2019: Cultivate 2019. Oxford Martin School, Oxford University.
15th November 2018: Cultivate 2018. 83 Pall Mall, London.
7th December 2017: Cultivate 2017. 83 Pall Mall, London.
6th December 2016: Cultivate 2016. Chapel Arts Centre, Bath.
To keep updated on future events, please subscribe to our email list below.
FOUNDERS
Illtud Dunsford: Illtud is a Farmer, Agri-Food Consultant and the CEO of the UK's first cultured meat company; Cellular Agriculture Ltd.
Prof Marianne Ellis: Marianne is CTO of Cellular Agriculture Ltd and a Biochemical Engineer at the University of Bath, where she carries out research and teaching in tissue engineering bioprocess design.
Abigail Glencross. On a journey. Will be back soon.
Dr Alexandra Sexton: Alexandra is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in Geography at the University of Sheffield. Her current research is exploring the implications of cellular and plant-based agriculture for landscapes and livelihoods in the UK.
Dr Neil Stephens: Neil is a sociologist and Senior Lecture in Technology and Society at the University of Birmingham. He has studied the socio-cultural aspects of cultured meat since 2008.
We regularly publish and speak about our work in this space
To be kept up to date on events and new publications, please subscribe to our email list through the form below.
FUNDING
Cultivate is an independent volunteer led activity, running as a low cost operation. We acknowledge the support of University of Bath in supporting our annual meetings in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2023, the Oxford Martin School in 2019, the University of Birmingham and the Wellcome Trust in 2022 and the University of Sheffield and the Leverhulme Trust in 2024. Individual founders have also provided low level funds to cover basic running costs.
CONTACT
We are pleased to receive communication via the below form. However, as a volunteer led organisation, we cannot guarantee a swift reply.