New grant to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration on the green transition
The Novo Nordisk Foundation has granted DKK 15 million to a new project aiming to strengthen interdisciplinary research collaboration and boost the green transition of agricultural and food systems. Denmark's eight universities are behind the project.
In 2022, the Danish universities joined forces in a new research centre, START, which will strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration among Danish researchers to accelerate the green transition of agricultural and food production. The centre currently connects more than 300 researchers in ten different research hubs, each with its own green theme. The centre has now received DKK 15 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for a new project called Ag-Food Connect.
“The better we collaborate, the better we solve the complex challenges facing us in the green transition. This is the vision behind the new project, which we can now launch with support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The project will provide new tools for interdisciplinary collaboration, form new networks among Danish and European researchers, and secure new opportunities for the younger generation of researchers,” says Eskild Holm Nielsen, Dean of the Faculty of Technical Sciences at Aarhus University.
He continues:
“The new project also gives us an opportunity to build on the platform offered by START as a gathering place around the green agenda for all stakeholders.”
More specifically, the new project will facilitate a number of network activities such as summer schools for junior researchers, workshops and an annual meeting with researchers, politicians, industry and the rest of society from Denmark and abroad. All this will strengthen and disseminate interdisciplinary research to help achieve our goals regarding the green transition of Danish agricultural and food systems.
“We need initiatives that can help develop agricultural and food production so that it becomes more sustainable. With the support for Ag-Food Connect, we want to offer interdisciplinary activities to promote collaboration between all the scientific disciplines and stakeholders necessary to promote the green transition of the agricultural and food sector," says Sisse Marquina-Jongberg, senior scientific lead at the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
About START
START (Centre for SusTainable AgRifood sysTems) is a research-based, academic and interdisciplinary collaboration platform founded by the eight universities in Denmark. Activities at START strengthen interdisciplinary research collaboration within the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities and aim to accelerate the green transition within agriculture and food production.