I feel greatly honoured to have been invited by the IFT International Division to give this 2^nd International Lecture and to follow in the footsteps of IUFoST President Peter Biacs who gave the Inaugural Lecture last year. His will be a tough act to follow; but I have had a very long apprenticeship in following tough acts in food science and technology, as well as gaining in the process a few insights which may help to illuminate and illustrate this Lecture.

This could be a talk in which the term "food scientists and technologists" would have to be used with great frequency. Instead I shall mostly use the term "we" (which of course includes me).

An International Lecture in our field must be about the world of food science and technology. Right? No, wrong!

We have to operate and practise, not in one, but in several separate but intricately interlinked worlds. We need to be conscious of all these worlds and to be able to move effortlessly between them, to operate at the interfaces, to conduct ourselves in each world with competence and integrity, and to do so to the best advantage of the public, the food supply, our profession and ourselves.

The worlds in question are

• The world of the science/technology "nuts and bolts"
• The world of employment
• The world of professionalism
• The world of continuing professional development
• The world of information
• The world of cyberspace
• The world of food legislation
• The world of food politics
• The terrestrial world of nations
• The world of internationalism

Each of these worlds would merit a lecture of its own. But to do so would miss the interconnections that it is essential to reveal. In this overview covering them all, time will permit only brief comments on each.

This is the primary world that we learn about as students – and thereafter, that we teach as academics. This is the world in which we pursue new knowledge by research; or communicate scientific knowledge to our peers or to the general public; or develop new food products and processes; or optimise the safety and quality of food via quality assurance, good manufacturing practice and HACCP; or monitor compliance with food regulations. It could, I suppose, be argued that this is not one world but six– the worlds of research, of teaching, of communication, of product development, of quality assurance and of regulation. For the purposes of this classification, however, it is the one world of scientific and technological knowledge – the "nuts and bolts" of our multi-disciplinary subject, whether that knowledge is being sought, or taught or communicated or applied.

We need, of course, to acquire, maintain and display assured competence in this world but must never make the mistake of assuming that this is all that is required of us.

We perform the scientific "nuts and bolts" activities in the world of employment, whether employed in industry, academic or research institutions, government agencies, regulatory agencies or, if we are consultants, by the most exacting of employers, ourselves! As employees we have a responsibility to provide conscientious and competent service to our employers, and to pursue their proper interests, provided that this can be done without compromising our integrity, or our primary duty to the safety of the food supply and to the ethics of professional conduct.

Apart from academic tenure, the current world of employment is very different from what it used to be (as even that last bastion of the "job-for-life", Japan, is now experiencing). Mergers, takeovers, reorganisations, downsizing or its myopic euphemism, "right-sizing", provide an uncertain working environment, in which career development needs to include that apparent paradox, planning for the unexpected, and the acquisition of transferable skills.

In many (but not all) countries there are societies concerned with food science, or with a contributory discipline as applied to food, or with science applied to a particular sector of the food field – in some countries, numerous such societies, of what is often termed a "learned society" character. Unlike professional bodies with standards of entry for professional grades of membership based on qualifications and experience, these societies do not have entry standards of competence and integrity - anyone interested can join. Many of the national bodies adhering to the International Union of Food Science and Technology, IUFoST, and some of the national organizations with which IFT enjoys a mutual Allied Organisation relationship, are societies of this kind. Individually, we food scientists and technologists around the world are practising experts originally trained in food science and technology or in one of its contributory disciplines. Not everyone is a "joiner" but many of us do join one or more of these national learned societies.

However, some (but not all) of those experts see beyond the "nuts and bolts" of expertise and realise that food science and technology is not only a knowledge field, not only an occupation, but a profession; and that they are also individual professionals. Some take that realisation to its logical conclusion - they join, and better still, play an active part in – their professional institute where one exists. Where one does not exist, they may join IFT or IFST, both of which have members outside their home countries. The more farsighted may try to get together with fellow professionals and seek to create their own "home-grown" professional institute. Indeed while IFT and IFST may – and do – welcome these individuals as overseas members, both of these well established professional bodies have a professional duty to encourage and help the formation of such "home-grown" professional institutes.

So what are the key characteristics of professional bodies?

• They are independent, not-for-profit, self-governing, democratic organisations.
• They have established standards of entry to professional grades of membership, based on appropriate academic qualifications and a specified minimum length of assessed experience at a responsible level.
• They admit as professional members only those who fulfil the criteria, and only in their individual personal capacities, and in no sense whatever representing the companies of organisations where they may be employed.
• They provide non-professional membership grades, including a student grade and one for those who have gained appropriate academic qualifications but have not yet fulfilled the minimum experience requirement.
• They require all members to show professional integrity and be seen to do so, by undertaking to adhere to a published and publicly available ethical code of professional conduct.
• They recognise their professional responsibility to the general public, to the food supply, to advance and extend the body of food science knowledge, to assist the continuing professional development of existing practitioners to attract new entrants to the profession..
• In fulfilment of those professional responsibilities, they collaborate in the public interest with government, with academia, with consumer bodies and with industry, but fully retain their independence.

The last point raises the question of the role of a professional body in relation to the food industry of its country – for example IFST in relation to the UK food industry, or IFT in relation to the US food industry. Taking IFST as the example, IFST needs to offer something of value to UK food companies in order to gain/maintain goodwill in supporting the active participation of UK food company scientists and technologists as volunteers in IFST work and affairs. It is right and proper, and only to be expected, that IFST would therefore want to be, and be seen to be, through those IFST members in the UK food industry, equipping their companies with the best of food science and technology. But if this extends beyond, to general external promotion of the competitive commercial global interests of the UK food industry, this would go beyond the proper role of a professional food science body. Exactly the same considerations and principles of course apply to the relationship between IFT and the US food industry.

Science does not stand still – and food science, being a relatively young multi-disciplinary subject, because of that fact develops all the faster. Knowledge is the indispensable working "tool" of our profession. As working individuals we know that our knowledge can rapidly become out-of-date unless we are continually updating it. More than that, however, as professionals we need not only to keep up-to-date but to be able to demonstrate that we are doing so. That is why in many professions, formal schemes of continuing professional development (CPD) have been or are being implemented. Such schemes are many and varied, but this is not the occasion to compare and contrast their respective merits.

It is not only a matter of keeping up-to-date in the particular area of one’s present or past specialisation. The attainment of transferable skills as part of one’s career development, or in the event of unforeseen circumstances, may take one into previously unvisited areas. For example, I sometimes reflect on how BSE has led me into areas of knowledge in which I would never have dreamed, say a decade ago, of finding myself.

Back in 1990 IFST, viewing BSE (mad cow disease) as a food-related problem and as an important and fascinating puzzle to be solved, developed a Position Statement on BSE, and an updated version in 1992. As a member of the IFST Technical Committee involved, I took part but not in a leading way. Having designed, constructed and written the IFST Web site in early 1995 (itself then a new area of knowledge and activity for me), aware of the importance of up-to-date IFST Position Statements on the Web site, and also becoming aware of the ferment of discussion on the Internet (and of course in the media) about BSE, I looked at our 1992 Position Statement and it was, of course, embarrassingly out-of-date. The outcome of my vigorous championing of the need for preparation of an updated version, was that I found myself drafted as leader of the drafting team for the numerous updated versions since then. I am not a medico, not an agriculturalist, not a physiologist, not a veterinarian, not a neurologist, not a pathologist, not a virologist, not a molecular biologist, not a geneticist, not an epidemiologist, not a researcher carrying out any experimental BSE-related project. So I have had to acquire knowledge in all these areas, from the literature, information from symposia, from IFST colleagues, from discussions with specialists, from the Internet etc etc, applying both a critical scientific faculty, honed over the years, in separating presently-known fact from speculation, and the skills of a food scientist in doing what the food scientist does all the time -- collating, interpreting and integrating information from a multiplicity of contributory disciplines into as coherent a picture as possible. In one sense therefore, on BSE I have been and always will be a generalist dealing with the fruits of the specialist activity of others. In another sense, perhaps my contribution is to have a scientific view and perspective of the whole picture, rather than the specialist's detailed close-up of one or another specialised part of it.

This perhaps also illustrates that continuing professional development is not just something for the younger members of our profession but is still ongoing at age 76.

The outcome of all efforts in food science and technology is information. It is like oxygen-carrying blood, but like blood it is useless unless the oxygen of information is carried to the places where it is needed. So information needs to be communicated by the provider, and accessed and perceived by the intended recipient. At different times we occupy either of those roles.

As information recipients, we are of course at the mercy of the providers’ communication skills and the objectivity of what is being communicated, but our main problem today is information overload, how to select effectively and how to cope with what we select. I wish I could offer a magic solution but there is none.

As providers, we need to communicate objectively and effectively with the intended recipients, whether we are conveying facts (e.g. QA results, details of a specification, a product formulation or a process), or research results, or explaining science or risk assessment to a lay audience. Unfortunately, scientific or technological excellence does not automatically carry with it communication skills. I am sure that we have all known some outstanding scientists who were abysmally incoherent or boring communicators; but most of us can work at it and learn how to make our information readily understandable, and interesting, to the intended recipients.

As information providers, we especially need to learn and cultivate the skills of imparting both our specific knowledge and the understanding of science itself to the general public in ways and in language that they can understand. It is not easy to do so, and still less easy in an era when certain groups ideologically hostile to the application of any new technology spread deliberate disinformation to scare the public about food, about specific technologies and to undermine confidence in science itself.

There is, however, a slippery slope down which we must be careful not to slide. It is all too easy, when rebutting the scare stories from extremists, to find oneself moving towards – or being perceived as adopting – a position at the opposite extreme, that of promoting new technology for its own sake regardless of problems. Of course any new technology has potential hazards; but if these frightened mankind to the point of rejecting them, the first passenger flight would never have flown, the first surgical operation would never have taken place, and indeed we would still be living in the Stone Age. The answer is to use scientific effort and research to foresee hazards and either eliminate them, or, by using our HACCP approach, to establish controls at critical points to prevent hazards from giving rise to risks. Science is now better equipped to do so than ever before.

"The world of…" is not just a figurative expression here. Although a "virtual" world, it is, as anyone who has spent any time in it will testify, a very real world in which all sorts of things are happening and all sorts of food science information is being communicated and perceived, of which those confined to the terrestrial world are totally unaware. This is the world of Web sites, of listservs (i.e. electronic mailing lists), of newsgroups, of word processing files sent as attachments to e-mails, of on-line journals, on-line conferences, and on-line virtual distance courses such as the one on Critical Food Safety Issues in the International Retail Market run earlier this year by Carol Sawyer and her colleagues at Michigan State University, which I mention as an example because I happened to be fortunate enough to have a sort of virtual ringside seat.

As providers, the Internet offers the opportunity to issue what we like, when we like, without let or hindrance. The other side of the coin is that it offers the same opportunities to a motley crew – of individuals offering ignorant speculation as fact, anti-technology activist groups and individuals, junk e-mail advertisers, political extremists and pornographers. As recipients, therefore it behoves us to be particularly selective in separating the gold nuggets from the dross. On the Web this is fairly easily done by visiting reputable food Web sites (professional bodies, university food science departments, food research institutions around the world, international agencies).

Yes, it contributes to the information overload, but it provides the means for accessing information on a chosen topic via Internet search engines and database search facilities, and, while sitting at one’s computer, with an immediacy unheard of in the world of the printed word.

To any who are not yet connected to this virtual but very real world, I have to say that in food science terms you are greatly deprived and disadvantaged and I urge you to rectify that situation.

Food legislation impinges on us all, whether we are involved in developing it, or in complying with it, or in monitoring and enforcing compliance with it, or in teaching it to the next generation of food technologists, or in being protected by it in our capacity as consumers.

It is a world of rapid change and development, partly reflecting advances in food technology, but partly reflecting the ebb-and-flow of pressures from the stakeholders.— for make no mistake, there are conflicting interests. At one end of the spectrum, companies wanting maximum freedom to sell and make claims for products; at the other end, consumerist activists seeking maximum restriction; and in the middle, legislators trying to strike a reasonable balance between the twin desiderata of honest enterprise and consumer protection and information – and being criticised from both extremes.

Using the word "politics" in its widest sense, this is an almost universally nasty world. It has many features which, if many of us "had our druthers" we would rather they did not exist. In food science we rarely talk openly of most of them, and I would rather not have to refer to them. But it is a world which exists, which affects us and which impinges on our activities, and therefore we must recognise its existence and its interaction with all the other worlds.

It is the world of

• aggressive "no-holds-barred" trade wars for global food markets;
• inadequate pursuit of urgently-needed solutions of major food-related problems;
• job losses of competent people through mergers, takeovers or "downsizing";
• some companies that fall below an acceptable standard of ethical business practice;
• damaging internal "politics" within companies or universities;
• research career prospects dependent far more on number of publications than on quality of research;
• activist groups unscrupulously attempting to scare the public into opposing legislation to permit applications of food technology.

Also this is the world displaying the obscene contrast between the comfortable existence of most people in the developed nations and the 800 million of our fellow human beings who daily suffer starvation or serious malnutrition, a contrast that is likely to deepen with doubling of the world’s population in the decades ahead unless the problem is seriously tackled. This was what IUFoST addressed in the Budapest Declaration adopted at the 9^th World Congress of Food Science & Technology in 1995, in the drafting of which I am proud to have had a hand. The problem will, of course, not be solved by food science alone, but it will not be solved without food science and in particular the possibilities that I think will be opened up by genetic modification.

Food science, wherever practised, knows no national or regional boundaries. It is universal. Food technology, the application of food science to the actual manufacture and distribution of food products for the public, likewise has universal principles, but its application in different parts of the world has to be appropriate to local circumstances, local requirements, and local legislation.

Professional bodies have, of course, to assist the interests and careers of the practitioners, but they have to do much more than that. Among many things, they have to deal with their Governments, in a variety of proactive and reactive ways, including for example on food safety and regulatory matters – as indeed IFT does in USA and IFST does in UK. Crucially, therefore, each has to be recognised by its Government as the national body which is the authoritative voice of the profession. In countries outside USA, IFT would not be acceptable in that role; nor indeed does it have, or could it ever have, in all those countries, the local presence in each and every capital, the detailed ins-and-outs of knowledge of government institutions, agencies and legislative structures, local legislative matters and intentions, or the necessary contacts with local Government Ministers and officials.

I have to add that, although I am a strong and active supporter of IUFoST as the international body, for the same reasons IUFoST would be neither capable of dealing effectively with national governments nor acceptable in such a role.

As long as the world consists of nations with national governments there will, therefore, be a need for independent national professional bodies.

This is the world of international co-operation. It is the world