The Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition was launched as a global initiative in 2021 to provide independent, evidence-based guidance to the 90 member states of the School Meals Coalition as they recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuild the health, education and future of their schoolchildren and adolescents. This Annual Research Statement reports new programmatic and policy insights in 2023 as well as accumulating and evolving understanding of the research in this area since the 2022 Ministerial Meeting. The Statement concludes by suggesting the implications for policy decisions, with the aim of increasing the reach, quality, and comprehensiveness of national school meals programmes by 2030. The Statement was prepared by the Research Consortium on behalf of the School Meals Coalition for the parliamentarians and policymakers of the member countries of the Coalition. The insights consolidated within this Statement draw from analyses led by the Research Consortium’s global Communities of Practice, as indicated under each statement below, including by the early career researchers and young scientists.