At NRI, Dr Spires’ leads the Centre for Food Systems Research alongside forwarding his research interests through a variety of research projects. In this role, he also develops and leads research and innovation consortia with external partners including non-academic stakeholders.

Prior to joining NRI, Dr Spires was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Food Policy (City St Georges, University of London) where he established and lead new interdisciplinary research projects exploring public policy solutions for healthy diets in the UK and in LMICs.

Dr Spires completed his PhD (2018) in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa where he researched low-income community access to safe and nutritious food.

• Hawkes, C; Gallagher Squires, C; Spires, M; Hawkins, N; Neve, K; Brock, J; Isaacs, A; Parrish, S; Coleman, P. (2024)‘The full picture of people’s realities must be considered to deliver better diets for all’, Nature Food.
• Barrett, M; Spires, M; Vogel, C. (2024) ‘The Healthy Start scheme in England "is a lifeline for families but many are missing out": a rapid qualitative analysis’, BMC Medicine,22(1):177. doi: 10.1186/s12916-024-03380-5.
• Turner, C; Salm, L; Spires, M; Laar, A; Holdsworth, M. (2023) ‘Capturing the moment: A snapshot review of contemporary food environment research featuring participatory photography methods', Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 65,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101364.
• Spires, M.; Battersby, J., Cohen, N., Daivadanam, M., Demmler, K., Mattioni, D., Pradeilles, R., Thompson, C., Turner, C., Venegas, C., Wertheim-Heck, S., Wills, W., Hawkes, C. (2023) ‘A “People’s Summit”: A case for lived experience of the food system as a critical source of evidence to inform the follow-up to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit’, Global Food Security, 37,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2023.100690.
• Laar, A., ...Spires, M., ... Vandevijvere, S. (2022) ‘Monitoring food environments and systems for sustainable diets in Africa: Lessons from Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa’, Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Diets, London, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003174417.
• Laar, A., ...Spires, M.,...Holdsworth, M. (2022) ‘Perspective: Food Environment Research Priorities for Africa: Lessons from the Africa Food Environment Research Network’, Advances in Nutrition, https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmac019.
• Isaacs, A., Spires, M., Halloran, A., Stridsland, T., and Hawkes, C. (2021) ‘Gathering data on food environments and practices through photo elicitation in Copenhagen, Denmark: Implications for adapting the EAT-Lancet reference diet to local circumstances’, Cities & Health, 6:3, 511-527, https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2022.2078072.
• Swart, R., Van der Merwe, M., Spires, M., and Drimie, S. (2020) ‘Child-centred food systems: Ensuring healthy diets for children’, South African Child Gauge 2020. Cape Town: Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town.
• Spires, M., Delobelle, P., Sanders, and D., Puoane, T. (2020) ‘Using photography to explore people with diabetes’ perspectives on food environments in urban and rural South Africa’, Health Promotion International, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daaa035.
• Spires, M., Berggreen-Clausen, A., Kasujja, F., Delobelle, P., Puoane, T., Sanders, D., and Daivadanam, M. (2020) ‘Snapshots of the food environment from rural and urban settings in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: Lessons from an implementation perspective’, Nutrients, 12(2), 484, doi: 10.3390/nu12020484

Dr Spires’ primary research interests centre on seeking to better understand people’s lived experience of local food environments and how findings from these inquiries can contribute to more effective and inclusive food systems and related policy.

• EU Horizon £230,000 (Dec 2022-Nov 2026) AfriFOODlinks, Africa & EU collaboration
• NIHR-PHR £1.2 million (Sep 2020-Feb 2024) Family Food Environment Study, London, UK (co-lead applicant)
• National Lottery Funding £50,000 (Dec 2019-June 2023) Peas Please Peoples Engagement Evaluation
• City, Uni of London (Mar-Jul 2022) Participatory Learning with municipal officials in the Breede Valley, South Africa
• City, Uni of London £10,000 (Aug-Dec 2020) Advancing city-level approaches to improving food policy and health–Cape Town
• UKRI-BBSRC £660,000 (Feb 2020-March 2020) Nourished Child Study, Cape Town, South Africa (co-lead applicant)
• ARUA-The Guild Clusters of Excellence: Food Environment Actions for the Promotion of Health. EU-Africa partnership

Centre Lead, Centre for Food Systems Research