History of the department

In 1892 the experimental school “Uppsala enskilda läroverk” (Uppsala Private School) was established on the initiative of professors J. A. Lundell and Adolf Noreen. In 1895 its school kitchen college was granted independent status under the name of Fackskolan för huslig ekonomi (Vocational School for Household Economics).
When the vocational school came under governmental control in 1961 it was named Seminariet för huslig utbildning (College for Household Education), and there have been many other changes since then.

Training of farm household teachers was discontinued in 1972.
The College for Household Education became a department at Uppsala University called the Department for the Education of Childcare Teachers, House Stewards, Home Economics Teachers, and Textile Teachers (BEHT) in the higher education reform of 1977. The head of the department was called department chair instead of rector.
In 1978 the House Stewardship Program was turned into the Program for Diet and Nutritional Economy with two branches, one administrative and one therapeutic.
A further reform of the program was undertaken in 1988 when the it changed its name to Program for Dietary Economics and Dietary Therapy with an administrative and a therapeutic branch.
The Childcare Program was transferred to the Department of Teacher Education on July 1,1986.
The new name Department of Domestic Science was introduced in the academic year of 1987/88.
The practical training of home economics teachers and textile teachers, and thereby also the teachers who taught the subjects of teaching methodology and education, were transferred to the Department of Teacher Education on July 1, 1988. However, education in the subject remained at the Department of Domestic Science.
A new program for compulsory-level schoolteachers was introduced in 1988 including the subjects of childhood studies, home economics, and textile crafts as subject combinations. In the new program for upper-secondary teachers it was proposed that the subjects of childhood studies, dietary studies, consumer studies, and housing/environmental studies as well as textile studies should be combined with another subject. The childcare teaching program was discontinued, while the home economics and textile teaching programs remained.
One of the department’s three sections, the Section for Diet, moved in the spring of 1989 to new premises at the Wallenberg Laboratory. The buildings on the corner of Trädgårdsgatan and Slottsgränd were renovated to house the Section for Administration, Economics, and Housing and the Section for Textiles. The Section for Textiles had been housed at Drottninggatan 4 from 1976 to 1994.
In 1990 the 49th and final edition of Hemmets kokbok (Home Cookbook) was published. The last home economics teachers take their degrees.
In 1991 Domestic Science was made a subject of research-level education under the Faculty of Social Sciences.
The first doctoral candidates were admitted in 1992 and the first public defense of a dissertation took place with Lisbeth Johansson’s dissertation Eating Quality of Rainbow Trout.
In 1995 the 100th anniversary was celebrated in the presence of Queen Silvia.
In 2001 Christina Fjellström was inaugurated as the department’s first full professor.
Textile Studies left the department on July 1, 2007, to become part of the Department of Art History.
The department changed its name to Department of Food, Nutrition and Dietetics in 2008.
The department left its premises on Trädgårdsgatan during the spring and summer of 2008. Textile crafts moved to premises at the English Park Campus and the Food, Nutrition and Dietetics Section moved to BMC.

The department ceased taking assignments in regard to textile crafts as of September 1, 2009.