Welcome to the IUNS 80th anniversary series, “Nutrition Without Borders: 80 Years of IUNS”.
Over the coming months, we will explore how IUNS has advanced nutrition science through international cooperation, encouraged collaboration and communication among researchers, and shared knowledge globally. Each story will highlight a part of IUNS’s mission and impact on global nutrition.
A Post-War World in Need: The Birth of Global Nutrition Science
In 1945, the world stood at a turning point. The devastation of World War II had reshaped nations, economies, and societies. Beyond destroyed infrastructure and political instability, another crisis was becoming increasingly visible: widespread malnutrition affecting both war-torn populations and countries undergoing rapid social change.
Food shortages, disrupted agriculture, population displacement, and poverty exposed how deeply nutrition was connected to global stability. Governments and scientists began to recognise that nutrition was not merely a domestic health issue, but was an international concern requiring cooperation across borders.
This moment marked a broader shift in global thinking. The post-war period saw the emergence of international collaboration through newly established institutions such as the United Nations and specialised agencies addressing health, agriculture, and development. Scientific communities were also rethinking how knowledge should be organised: instead of working in isolation, researchers increasingly saw value in coordinated global exchange.
Nutrition science was no exception.
A Need for International Scientific Coordination
Before the war, nutrition research existed primarily within national context. Scientists studied deficiency diseases, dietary patterns, and food composition largely independently, often using different methods and standards. As a result, comparing findings across countries was difficult, slowing scientific progress at precisely the time when coordinated solutions were urgently needed.
Researchers recognised several shared challenges:
- Lack of harmonised dietary assessment methods
- Limited communication between scientific communities
- Uneven access to emerging nutritional knowledge
- The need to translate research into public health action
Nutrition problems clearly crossed national boundaries. Addressing them required an organised international scientific network.
The Founding of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences
In response to this need, leading nutrition scientists worked through existing international scientific structures to establish a dedicated global body. In 1946, the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) was established in 1946 to promote international collaboration in nutrition research. In 1968, the union was admitted as a member of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) – now part of the International Science Council (ISC), strengthening its role within the global scientific community.
Rather than representing individual scientists, IUNS was designed as a union of national nutrition societies. This structure reflected an important principle; international collaboration would be built through cooperation among national scientific communities, allowing countries to contribute collectively while maintaining scientific independence.
The aims of IUNS were ambitious yet practical:
- Promote international cooperation in nutritional science
- Encourage advancement of research and education
- Facilitate communication and exchange of scientific knowledge
- Support the application of nutrition science to improve global health
At a time when travel was difficult and communication relied on letters and printed journals, creating a coordinated international scientific network required both vision and commitment.
Nutrition and the Spirit of Post-War Liberal Cooperation
From an international relations perspective, the creation of IUNS reflects a broader post-war movement toward liberal internationalism, which is the belief that cooperation, shared knowledge, and institutions could help prevent conflict and improve human wellbeing.
Scientific collaboration became one way to rebuild trust between nations. Nutrition science, grounded in shared human needs, offered a particularly powerful platform for cooperation. Hunger and malnutrition were challenges no country could solve alone, and scientific exchange became a form of diplomacy rooted in evidence rather than politics.
IUNS emerged alongside other international efforts, such as FAO and WHO, addressing food and health, contributing a uniquely scientific voice to global discussions about nutrition policy and public health.
A Foundation for Global Nutrition Science
What began in 1946 as a scientific initiative has since grown into a worldwide network connecting nutritional scientists across regions, disciplines, and generations. Through congresses, task forces, and partnerships, IUNS continues to support collaboration on issues ranging from micronutrient deficiencies to sustainable diets and emerging global health challenges.
The founding of IUNS reminds us that international cooperation in science is not accidental but is built intentionally in response to shared crises and shared aspirations.
In the aftermath of war, nutrition scientists chose collaboration over fragmentation. Their decision laid the foundation for a global community working toward a common goal, which is improving nutrition for all.
The creation of IUNS was more than a scientific milestone; it was a commitment to global collaboration in the pursuit of human health. In a world still recovering from war, the union symbolised the belief that knowledge could transcend borders, and cooperation could help prevent hunger and disease. Eight decades later, IUNS continues this mission, convening scientists worldwide to address the complex nutrition challenges of today and the future.
But why did nutrition science, in particular, need an international union? The challenges were not only global in scale, they were also scientific in nature, requiring researchers to work together to standardise methods, compare findings, and share knowledge across borders.
Next in the “Nutrition Without Borders: 80 Years of IUNS” series: we will explore the scientific reasons that made the creation of the IUNS essential, and how it helped unify nutrition research worldwide.
