WUR

Wageningen University & Research

Stichting Wageningen Research (WR)

Stichting Wageningen Research (WR) is part of Wageningen University & Research (WUR), a collaboration between Wageningen University (WU) and the specialised research institutes grouped in the Stichting Wageningen Research. Legally represented by the Chair of the Board of Wageningen UR, or the authorised representative.

Activities

Within the Stichting Wageningen Research around 3.500 staff, working in 9 different research institutions, carry out application-oriented and field-based research in the domain of ‘healthy food and living environment’ for governments and the business community at large. Thematic domains of research include Nutrition and Health, Food Production, Bio-based Economy, Coast and Sea, Nature and Landscape, Climate and Water and Market and Chain Strategies. For the urgent challenges within its main domains, WUR enhances the close collaboration between the natural and social sciences within WUR, and with the international partners, in interdisciplinary research programmes. Close collaboration is established with governments, companies, stakeholder organisations, and other knowledge institutions. The research institutions are involved in many research projects in developing countries and emerging economies, in Europe, and in the Netherlands. The following WR institutes and departments will be involved in LEAP4FNSSA:

– the former Wageningen International and the EU international helpdesk of WUR, now part of the WUR staff department Corporate Strategy & Accounts (CSA);

– Wageningen Economic Research (WEcR), departments of International Policy and Green Economy and Land Use;

– Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (not divided in departments);

– Department IT Information Systems.

Through these department representatives, WR will mainly contribute to the project through WP 1 (in particular task on Studies), WP 3 (in particular mapping and clustering of projects), and WP 5 (in particular support to final policy document)

People

Dr. Huub Löffler, Manager International Accounts of WUR, Department CSA, was the coordinator of the PROIntensAfrica EU-programme. He was educated as plant pathologist and was involved in many international projects related to food and food security for over two decades. After that, he moved to policy and management with emphasis on international collaboration. He is member of the Governing Boards of JPI-FACCE, AGRINATURA and ICRA (chair) and member of the advisory board of the Ethiopian programme Benefit. In 2017 he was appointed Deputy Director Corporate Strategy and Accounts and Director International and Accounts for Wageningen UR.
Pieter Windmeijer, senior programme manager at CSA, has an MSc in Geography and AgroEcology at the University of Amsterdam. He has more than 20 year of professional experience in mainly West Africa in projects focusing on sustainable intensification for enhanced food and nutrition security. He was the scientific coordinator of the Inland Valley Consortium hosted by AfricaRice, a regional research for development programme covering 12 countries in West Africa. He was also for six years involved in Institutional Capacity Building projects with two Universities in Benin. He was manager of the PROIntensAfrica project.
Seerp Wigboldus is Senior Advisor Integrated Approaches for Sustainable Development at Wageningen Centre for Development Innovations. He has ten years of field-based experience in the Himalayas plus fifteen years of advisory, training, and research experience in Africa and Asia. Fields of expertise are strategy development, monitoring & evaluation, inter/transdisciplinary collaboration, ethics of technology and innovation, and responsible scaling of agrifood innovations.
Dr. Marianne van Dorp is Manager Business Development at Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, where she deals with projects in the full domain of agriculture and life sciences. She has a firm background in Food and Nutrition Security, and has specifically been working on linking agriculture and food security interventions to nutritional outcomes, among others through working for national and international agricultural research. In addition she was involved in policy and project advisory services, capacity development and project design and implementation.
Peter van Boheemen (MSc) is consultant/lead developer at the IT department of Wageningen University & Research. He is working in a team that develops and maintains library and research datamanagement applications. He has recently been involved in the development of a project data base for the PLATFORM of Bioeconomy ERA-NET Actions (http://era-platform.eu/p2p-networks/platformdb/) and is now involved in the development of WUR international project database with multiple opportunities for clustering projects for strategic analysis.
Dr. Vincent Linderhof, Environmental and water resources economist at Wageningen Economic Research, specialist in econometric analysis of yield gap / nutrition gap in farm households in relation to ecosystem services (in particular water availability). His expertise covers East and West Africa.
Dr. Daniel Alayew Mekonnen, agricultural economist at Wageningen Economic Research, is a specialist in behavioural drivers of food and nutrition security in farm households. Daniel has over 10 years of experience in consultancy and research on the agriculture economy of Ethiopia, Nigeria and other African regions.
Dr. Thom Achterbosch, Project coordinator and senior researcher on food and nutrition security at Wageningen Economic Research. His current work focuses on foresight on dietary outcomes in relation to food systems change, informed by advanced economic modelling and stakeholder participation, with West and Eastern Africa as focal points and with funding from CGIAR. His earlier work comprised value chain and agricultural and trade policy analysis.
Other Wageningen Research colleagues will be mobilized, if necessary.