This is part 3 of a blog series on food systems. This article was written by Catharien Terwisscha van Scheltinga. Deltas world-wide are increasingly under pressure. They form a dynamic link between land and water, fresh and saline environments, connecting the natural environment with production systems organized by human intervention….
This is part 2 of a blog series on food systems. This article was written by Dolfi Debrot. By nature, deltas offer enormous wealth. Intensive use has destroyed many deltas. This has resulted – especially in the (sub)tropics – in many problems such as flooding, salinisation, sinking and washing away…
This is part 1 of a blog series on food systems. This article was written by Katrine Soma and Siemen van Berkum. Developing countries are urbanising rapidly. Many urban dwellers are poor and have to deal with malnutrition and limited access to healthy food. How can their food security be…
How to stimulate large groups of people to make healthier and more sustainable food choices? As a scientist, I find this question intriguing. The focus of attention is not on the individual consumer’s behaviour, but on the food system this consumer is part of. This system provides the context in…
The first text processor that I worked with has barely anything in common with those of today. You could type, edit and delete texts and it was possible to save and print files. The developers knew that their product at that point wasn’t complete yet. Yet, it was still a…
Throughout my career in the world of applied research, I have always worked at the interface of various disciplines. In my current job as Food Informatics researcher at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, this situation remains unchanged. With my technical and analytical skills, I have the pleasure of working with…
It’s nearly time for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This new European privacy legislation will come into force for all Member States on 25 May 2018. While I do believe that this is excellent legislation that attempts to guarantee the privacy of citizens, it has significant consequences for scientific…
Why does one person have an apple for their afternoon snack, while someone else has a slice of pizza? As nutritional scientists, we are finding out more and more about what people eat within a single day. We also know that context is king. Where you are, who you are…
The key to a long and healthy life is a balanced and healthy diet. Thanks to biomedical research – scientific research in the field of medicine – we are now well aware what a healthy diet needs to include as part of a healthy lifestyle. If every consumer followed the…
The emergence of big data and open data, calls for the development of a digital research infrastructure in order to research health, nutrition and food in Europe. But how do you develop a digital research infrastructure? Where do you begin? Who must you involve? And what added value must this research infrastructure provide? How do you make such a valuable research infrastructure sustainable and robust? In order to answer these questions, you first have to determine the core offering of the research infrastructure.