More than 150 people from the world of food and drink, and various academics, gathered at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in London, to celebrate the launch of Oxford Gastronomica. Based at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford Gastronomica is the UK's first dedicated centre for the study of food, drink and culture. It draws together influential figures who share a desire to improve society's relationship with food and drink. One of its main purposes is to help us all gain a respect and appreciation for quality food and drink, which its founder and chairman, Donald Sloan, feels has been lost through the industrialisation and standardisation of production.

He's not just talking about the fact that certain brands of tomato soup and baked beans taste the same regardless of their country of manufacture. He is also concerned with fruits and vegetables grown for convenience rather than taste, and meals cooked in central kitchens and then reheated in pubs and restaurants all over the world.

Donald says that his motivation for establishing Oxford Gastronomica is a long-held frustration that in the UK we do not display respect food and drink in the way we do other cultural signifiers, such as art and music.

He is determined to promote the benefits of a more positive relationship with food and drink. "I want to help place food and drink at the centre of British culture, to have it recognised as something worth elaborating, something worth taking pride in. All those involved in Oxford Gastronomica realise that if we are going to maximise our influence we have to reach out, not just to the academic and business communities, but to the public too."

One of the ways that Donald hopes he can reach the man in the street is by running a series of non-accredited short courses in Oxford and New York, which address a range of important issues about the links between food, drink and culture.

The courses will include The Language of Food and The Language of Wine, which will both examine how different genre of food and drink-related literature have influenced our attitudes over many years. The literature studied in these courses will include many of the books in the Gastronomic library housed at Oxford Brookes. The library is made up of the private collections of the late John Fuller who collected recipe books, including some of the earliest printed.

The food-book collections of the late food writer Jane Grigson, TV chef Ken Hom and Prue Leith are also in this library, which is considered one of the most significant gastronomic libraries in the world and is a resource open to the general public.

Donald says that they will also be running short courses in areas such as Food History, Food and the Arts, and Food, Drink and British Culture.

The fact that these courses will take place in New York as well as Oxford is due to strongly established relationships between the Department of Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism Management at Oxford Brookes, which Donald Sloan heads, and chefs and academics in the US.

"In part, this relationship with New York stems from shared attitudes. I find it refreshing that those in the food world in New York are risk-takers. They do not feel unnecessarily bound by culinary traditions; they are striving for excellence and doing everything they can to obtain it," Donald explains. He cites enterprising American chefs such as Wylie Dufresne, who runs New York's top restaurant WD-50, as an example. The fresh produce of each season is celebrated here in a menu which draws elements from a wide array of cuisines and cooking techniques. Dinner at WD-50 is not just dinner but a grandiose cultural event.

Donald says that nearly every dish Dufresne serves breaks with established convention, and that there are now restaurants in the UK that are doing something similar.

Oxford Gastronomic is not just about expensive restaurants, however. Other important food issues are on the agenda.

"We are beginning to understand the damaging consequences of our food production, consumption and supply practices - think obesity, lack of social cohesion, environmental damage, mistreatment of food producers in developing parts of the world.

"Much of the work we will be doing with industry, and will increasingly do, is equipping business managers with the knowledge required to take informed decisions that limit the damage of their practices. We hope to influence public policy-making too."

The founding members of Oxford Gastronomica include celebrity chefs and food writers such as Raymond Blanc, Sheila Dillon, Geraldine Holt, Ken Hom, Madhur Jaffrey, Prue Leith, Paul Levy and Jill Norman.

Oxford Gastronomica is self-funding - all its projects will cover their own costs. In addition, Oxford Brookes has launched a fundraising campaign to attract scholarships to support those engaged in the study of food, drink and culture.

"It's important," says Donald, "that people realise that what we are doing will go way beyond preaching to the converted. We will use our independent status to draw together the public, academics, writers, journalists, restaurateurs and chefs, food producers, broadcasters and students - indeed all those who share a concern for the nature of our relationship with food."