Karin Zimmermann, Programme leader Research Infrastructures Food, Nutrition and Health, and Senior Researcher.
Karin graduated from agricultural economics, and from agriculture at the Agricultural University of applied sciences in Dordrecht / Delft. She specializes in Marketing and Information Management. Her thesis "The effect of non-response on quality of research results" was about the impact of non-response among farmers on the quality of the sample among this target group and the research results on business succession issues. After graduation she worked as a Marketing Manager at the main Dutch Agricultural Cooperation CEBECO. Since 1987 she works as senior researcher Strategic marketing at WEcR and has worked on various national and international projects emphasising consumer driven product development and chain innovation in close cooperation with the (inter) national food industry. From 2004 she is involved in various EU projects as senior researcher and project manager in research on consumer behaviour and consumer driven and responsive chain (ISAFRUIT, Focus Balkans, PEGASUS , DG CLIMA); communication (CONNECT4ACTION, SUSFANS) and (conceptual) design of European research infrastructures for food , nutrition and health (EuroDISH, RICHFIELDS). Since 2014 she is member of the Executive Management Board of the European Food, Nutrition and Health Infrastructure (FNH-RI). At the moment she is WEcR programme leader research infrastructures.
The number of people suffering from diet-related illnesses, keep increasing in Europe. To curb this trend, the consumer behaviour needs to change. Businesses in the retail and food industry play a key role, as the onus is on them to develop products that are both tasty and healthy.
A joint European infrastructure for scientific research into food, health and consumer behaviour is being developed under the direction of Wageningen University & Research. This is in everyone’s interest – from consumers and companies in the food industry to policy-makers and nutritional experts.