Science
Agriculture

Six NWO grants for international research

Six Wageningen researchers have been given grants by Dutch funding organization NWO to spend on their research within the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a global platform for research on food security.
Albert Sikkema

Bassins with red tilapia in Thailand. Marc Verdegem, one of the WUR researchers with a NWO premium, conducts research into the ecological intensification of fish farming. © Shutterstock

The recipients are Marrit van den Berg, Inge Brouwer, Erwin Bulte, Ruerd Ruben, Jeroen Groot and Marc Verdegem. NWO awarded seven grants, six of which went to WUR scientists. The seventh researcher has Wageningen roots too: Anton Vrieling, now an associate professor at the University of Twente, did two Master’s and a PhD at WUR.

The researchers are being given more than 150,000 euros to collaborate with the CGIAR agricultural research institutes for a period of three years. The research proposals focus on fighting poverty, improving nutrition and food security and improving access to natural resources.

Jeroen Groot, a researcher at Farming Systems Ecology, has been given a grant by NWO to assess and harmonize the agro-ecological models used by various CGIAR institutes. The CGIAR institutes are therefore also financing part of Groot’s research, which means he can devote all his time to this project over the next three years. Groot will still supervise a few Wageningen MSc and PhD students.

Marc Verdegem of Aquaculture and Fisheries will spend 40 percent of his time for the next three years to collaboration with CGIAR in the ecological intensification of fish farming. That is an ongoing study that Verdegem is doing with WorldFish, one of the CGIAR institutes.

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