<The illuminated Wageningen UR sign placed on the Lumen being dismantled following the new brand policy, photo by Sven Menschel>
Little will change for employees of the university. Up to now, they were part of the Wageningen University brand and will now be part of Wageningen University & Research. They can still indicate which chair group they work for.
A bit more change awaits the employees of DLO. Their employer, the DLO Foundation, changes its name to Wageningen Research Foundation. The conditions of employment remain the same, but the name of their institutes will change. Alterra will be known as Wageningen Environmental Research, LEI changes to Wageningen Economic Research, Imares becomes Wageningen Marine Research and CVI is now Wageningen Bioveterinary Research.
Wageningen UR as a brand ceases to be
Domain names
The DLO brand names will cease to be, explains Kristel Klein, who is responsible for the coordination of the implementation of the new brand policy from Communication Services. These names will be replaced by “domain names” that all start with Wageningen and end with Research. This means that barely anything will change for the employees of Food & Biobased Research and Livestock Research – all they need to do is add “Wageningen” in front of their domain name. There is also an exception that proves the rule. Rikilt, the institute for food safety, will keep its name while awaiting a prospective merger with the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA).
WUR
The goal of the new brand policy is to emphasise internal collaboration, one face, one group, one brand. One Wageningen means there is only one brand. Wageningen UR, which has been the main brand so far, will no longer be used; it must be spelled out: Wageningen University & Research. But the acronym WUR, which was unacceptable for a long time, will be allowed from now on.
These brands should not be confused with the names of the organisations. The Sciences Groups will not disappear; people still work for ASG or ESG. Those were not brand names, and it will remain that way.