Fujian lies in the South East of China, on the mainland opposite Taiwan, with which it maintains strong economic links. In terms of economic growth, the province has been among China's top performers for a number of years, and the port of Xiamen made it into the world's top ten for container movements in 2009. Xiamen lies in a so-called Special Economic Zone, as do Shanghai and Hong Kong. Fujian has 36 million inhabitants. The province is a major producer of fruit, vegetables and flowers.

The Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) has been recently created within the Wageninen UR Social Sciences Group. Wageningen UR has established the Centre because of the importance it places on linking research and education activities with wider processes of innovation, change and capacity development in society. The Centre will contribute to Wageningen UR's work on global development issues, including poverty alleviation, food security, pro-poor market development, climate change, water management, biodiversity conservation and rural development. From its focus on innovation processes and capacity development, the Centre will engage with the international dimensions of these issues and play a key role in supporting activities in countries with developing and transitional economies.

When:
The launch of the centre will be on 9 February.

Hosts:
The hosts of the launch are Professor Ruud Huirne, Managing Director of the Social Sciences Group, Wageningen UR and Dr Jim Woodhill, Director of the Centre for Development Innovation.

Keynote speaker:
John Elkington, Director of Volans, a leading authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development and author of ‘The Power of Unreasonable People’, will talk about building innovative scalable solutions to the global divides that overshadow the future.

more information: info.cdi@wur.nl

In October 2009, the staff and project portfolio of CD&IC merged into the new Centre and are now operating as the Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation (CDI). The official launch of the Centre will take place at the end of January 2010, when its new web site will also come on line.

The Director of the new Centre is Jim Woodhill and the Deputy Director is Wouter Leen Hijweege.

Wageningen International Front Office will continue separately as Wageningen International. It will maintain its function of enabling international partners and clients to gain easy access to all the research, education and capacity development activities of Wageningen UR and Van Hall Larenstein.

profile Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation -  Creating Capacities for Change  - Wageningen UR’s Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) works to create capacities for change. It facilitates innovation, brokers knowledge and develops capacities with a focus on food systems, rural development, agri-business and natural resource management.  The Centre links Wageningen UR’s knowledge and expertise with processes of society-wide learning and innovation. In the search for solutions to poverty, hunger, climate change and environmental degradation, ‘business as usual’ is not an option. A sustainable and equitable future demands markets with a triple bottom line that balance the needs of People, Planet and Profit. Linking technological and institutional innovation becomes critical.  Such innovation calls for citizens, governments, businesses, NGOs and the scientific community to work together in new ways. In an increasingly complex world, ‘development innovation’ means being strategic and creative in tackling these challenges of development.  The Centre for Development Innovation operates with a core staff of 50 and in close collaboration with researchers across Wageningen UR. This expertise is applied to a diverse portfolio of over 200 projects annually, involving partners and clients in more than 60 countries. Building on Wageningen UR’s long history of international work, the Centre engages actively in global networks of organisations and professionals working on sustainable development.

These two researchers from Wageningen University (part of Wageningen UR) will receive the 'Advanced Grants' because of their qualities as European research leaders and because of their proposals for the cutting-edge research for which they had submitted research proposals. The size of the ERC awards is comparable with that of the prestigious Spinoza prize in the Netherlands. The awards are described below.

Prof. Martien Groenen
The origin of new species has intrigued scientists ever since Darwin's time. Professor Groenen, in his research project ‘Molecular characterization of genetic factors in the pig under selection during speciation, domestication and breeding’, is aiming to gain more insight into the way in which new species arise. To do this, he is comparing the genome of the modern pig with that of a number of closely related species such as the warthog from Java and the bearded swine. Recent technological developments now make it possible to sequence the whole genome of a large number of individuals. By comparing the genomes of individuals from various pig breeds, the research team aims to obtain detailed insight into the changes in the genome since the pig was domesticated around 9000 years ago. The availability of DNA from thousand-year-old bones is of great importance in this research. The team is also mapping more recent changes that have taken place as a result of selection by breeding in the pig sector. The new insights provide information about evolution and may also help to make selection in pig breeding more specific.

Martien Groenen (born in 1958) has been a professor at Wageningen University since 2002. He has been involved in mapping the genomes of various farm animals since the beginning of the 1990s. In 2004, this resulted in the publication of the genome sequence of the chicken (and three articles in Nature). He plays  a prominent role in the international chicken and swine genome sequencing committees and at present he is involved in international projects that are sequencing  the genomes of the pig, turkey, duck and great tit.

Prof. Willem M. de Vos
More than a thousand microbe species colonise our intestines in numbers far greater than the cells in our body. Furthermore, the coding capacity of the combined genome of these microbes (known as the metagenome) is many times larger than that of the human genome. These microorganisms work together to break down food, stimulate our immune system and are also involved in communication with our body. The new research 'Exploitation of Intestinal Microbes' focuses on bacteria that communicate with us and interact with the mucus layer that separates the intestinal and bacterial cells. This layer serves as a source of food and is involved in the attachment of the common intestinal resident Akkermansia muciniphila and the probiotic lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, respectively. This research will contribute to advancing our understanding of the molecular nature of the interactions between these bacteria and will provide the opportunity to develop improved food or probiotic bacteria.

Willem M. de Vos (born in 1954) obtained his PhD doctorate cum laude (highest honors) at the University of Groningen for research partly carried out at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. He worked for more than a dozen years at NIZO Food Research as a research manager. He has been a professor at Wageningen University since the age of 32, first as professor in bacterial genetics and later as professor of microbiology. In the period 2000-2007, he was programme director for TI Food & Nutrition, one of the top technological institutes in the Netherlands. In 2008, Willem de Vos received the Spinoza prize awarded by the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). In 2009, he was appointed a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Arts (KNAW). In Finland, he is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Helsinki where some of the ERC work will be carried out in collaboration with Wageningen University.
 
European Research Council
The European Research Council (ERC) was set up in 2007 to enhance the quality of academic research in all disciplines in European countries. This is the second time the Advanced Grants competition prize has been awarded. ERC finances excellent, bottom-up and ground-breaking research.The Netherlands were awarded sixteen times. Prof. Kafatos, who chairs the ERC, believes in investing in the most talented people, this being even more essential during an economic recession as it can have a positive effect on Europe and its economy.

Objective and approach
The overarching objective of the Delta Alliance is to support the development and dissemination of new and existing knowledge on how river delta regions may respond to the challenges that deltas face, in particular those that come with a changing climate. The Delta Alliance approach includes international research collaboration, multi-stakeholder dialogue and information dissemination in a network of dedicated individuals and organizations.

Partners involved
A growing number of organizations, like research institutes, governments, NGO's and the private sector, all over the world are involved in the Delta Alliance.

The Delta Alliance is working together with the World Estuary Alliance and Connecting Delta Cities.

The announcement took place in the Holland Climate House on the 9th day of the Copenhagen Climate Conference.

Pier Vellinga, co-host at the Holland Climate House
The Climate House is the stage on which Vellinga sets out his Wageningen stall, in his role as head salesman. Many politicians, managers and scientists from home and abroad have been invited to visit the house. What will be the signs of success? Vellinga: 'If we pick up new ideas and forge a network of international climate researchers. If we learn from others and others learn from us. And if we have some fun together. That's allowed too if Copenhagen is a success.' Vellinga's wish list for the negotations is clear. 'For me it's a success if political agreement is reached over a sizeable reduction in CO2 emissions: Twenty to thirty percent in 2020 and about eighty percent in 2050. And financial support for the third world countries and a big contribution from China and India.'

Vellinga is not involved in the negotiations himself. 'In that respect we are in the fringe programme. But sometimes you wonder what is main programme and what is fringe. The politicians make the agreements, but we are the ones who will have to put those agreements into practice.'
Needless to say the negotiations will be followed closely. Literally: 'The Dutch negotiating team is very close to us, so we are in the thick of it. Minister Cramer will pop in every day if possible.'

Judith Jobse, teacher at VHL in Velp, and seventeen students of tropical forestry
'It's a coincidence really', explains Jobse. A month and a half ago, Jobse contacted the Global Forest Coalition (GFC). She didn't know the organization, but thought it might be of interest for the courses she teaches on the major in Tropical Foresty. 'This block I've been doing Forest Policy. It turned out that they were keen to get some contacts among students from the Netherlands.' And the contact led to the offer of a trip to Copenhagen. Jobse and her colleague Arjen Hettema are taking seventeen students along. The GFC is an international coalition that aims to preserve the tropical forests for the indigenous people who are dependent on them. The Copenhagen summit is crucial for this. Reducing deforestation plays a key role in reducing CO₂ emissions. The GFC wants to draw attention to the problem. They want our students to do that in the Netherlands by interviewing politicians and making videos for the internet.' Jobse sees the six-day trip as a great opportunity for the Velp students to 'take a look behind the scenes'. 'They are allowed in the public gallery in the conference centre during the negotiations. And then there are loads of other events where they can listen, debate and ask questions.'

Koen Kramer, researcher at Alterra
Koen Kramer will be selling his message at the market of the Holland Climate House. Kramer argues for adaptation of ecosystems to climate change. 'The point I want to make is that at the moment, nature in the Netherlands cannot cope with climate change. It will be pushed over the edge by the predicted droughts and wet spells. The question is how you can get policy and management to help you steer a course towards a more adaptable system. Think about your dominant vegetation, will it survive, and is it varied enough? A second track is the diversity of your threatened species. Prevent an 'ecological Schiphol fire' in which a species is locked up in its corner and cannot escape. We must not hark back to a reference point in the past. Let adaptation takes it course and make sure that rare species get a place in the landscape. It doesn't always have to mean more square kilometres of nature reserves.  An example: we now have over 300 thousand hectares of fir in the Netherlands. It's worth asking ourselves whether that couldn't be put to better use, ecologically. That's the Dutch situation, but it's the same all over Europe. We need to anticipate the coming changes. We still have time now. If you wait until the crunch comes, you're too late.

Suzanne Maas, MSc student of Environmental Sciences
Somewhere in amongst the enormous fringe programme there is a short documentary to be seen: La gente y el medio ambiente. People and the environment, by Suzanne Maas and her friend, journalist André Weststrate. The film is about the effects of deforestation in Nicaragua. Suzanne worked there for four months this year with the Fundacion del Rio, a local development and environmental organization. She is carrying on with this voluntary work in Copenhagen. But even more important perhaps is Project Survival. 'Through this project, nine young Africans are going to Copenhagen to help their countries' delegations during the negotiations.' Poor countries have small delegations. Maas saw this for herself when she was FairClimate ambassador to the climate negotiations in Poznan last year. 'The inquality starts right from there. Those delegations can't attend all the meetings. And so they can't vote on everything.'  In Copenhagen, Maas and her colleagues (including five other Wageningen students) are going to support the Africans. 'We also draw the attention of the media to the problem of the small delegations and the right of young people to contribute to decisions about their own future.' 

Kees Slingerland, director of Alterra and chair of the planned Delta Alliance
Convert people. That's what Kees Slingerland aims to do in Copenhagen.  Drum up support for the Delta Alliance to be set up next year. 'The idea is to form an international network around knowledge on the deltas of the world.' Because there's a real need for such a network, says Slingerland. 'Deltas are very vulnerable to climate change. If sea levels go up, deltas are the first to be affected. At the same time, more than half the world's population live in delta areas, which also contain a lot of real estate, agricultural land and biodiversity. The Delta Alliance is a Dutch initiative. 'But it is not a Dutch export product. It is absolutely not the case that we are going to call the tune', Slingerland stresses. Above all, the Delta Alliance will share the available knowledge and apply it as fast as possible. The collaboration should also lead to better harmonization with research. 'We can't really coordinate that.  We are not in charge, but we hope that research programmes will become more efficient and more in tune with each other.' At present, Indonesia, Vietnam and California have joined in. 'And we are working closely with the Estuaria Alliance of the Worldwide Fund for Nature.' / Roelof Kleis

On Friday 6 November, the council of ministers decided to jointly invest 18.8 million euros together with the province of Gelderland in a centre for advanced research facilities in Gelderland's Food Valley region, where Wageningen UR (University & Research centre) is located. This will give a strong impulse to the infrastructure for research into healthy food and new food products and processes. Stimulating knowledge-intensive commercial activity in the field of Nutrition and Health is one of the spearheads of the province of Gelderland's policy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs will contribute 12.4 million euros and the province will contribute 6.4 million. Wageningen UR will be responsible for setting up and managing the Centre for Advanced Agrofood Technology.

The centre will be run on the basis of business rates. Because of this it will be possible to invest on an ongoing basis in expanding the facilities and keeping them up-to-date. This means that future research in the Dutch and European agri-food sector will always have access to the latest facilities. The equipment that will be concentrated in the centre can be used by both businesses and research institutes. The current investment relates to the first phase, in which no new buildings are to be constructed, and in which the equipment in Wageningen UR's various laboratories remains in place in order to maintain the best possible connection with the necessary knowledge. A second phase is anticipated in which the facilities are to be centralised at Wageningen Campus.

According to Minister Van der Hoeven, "Because of CAT-AgroFood, smaller businesses in the food sector will also be able to take advantage of the latest technological developments."

Project manager Dr Frans Kampers of Wageningen UR said, "Effective innovation in the agri-food sector calls for combining the expertise of various disciplines together with market-oriented creativity. Consolidating the advanced infrastructure necessary for research and development creates a crystallisation point of science, instrumentation and industry in which cross-pollination and synergy can thrive. State-of-the-art facilities benefit the ideas which proceed from the new insights gained during research. The proximity of the various possibilities and the accompanying expertise results in unique combinations of techniques and technologies. At the same time, the centre forms a sort of shop window in which the latest technologies can demonstrate their value to research in the life sciences."

Food Valley and Wageningen UR are unique throughout the world because they encourage cooperation in the agri-food field between a prominent academic knowledge institute and a widespread group of national and international businesses.

On Friday 6 November, the council of ministers decided to jointly invest 18.8 million euros together with the province of Gelderland in a centre for advanced research facilities in Gelderland?s Food Valley region, where Wageningen UR (University & Research centre) is located. This will give a strong impulse to the infrastructure for research into healthy food and new food products and processes. Stimulating knowledge-intensive commercial activity in the field of Nutrition and Health is one of the spearheads of the province of Gelderland?s policy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs will contribute 12.4 million euros and the province will contribute 6.4 million. Wageningen UR will be responsible for setting up and managing the Centre for Advanced Agrofood Technology.

The centre will be run on the basis of business rates. Because of this it will be possible to invest on an ongoing basis in expanding the facilities and keeping them up-to-date. This means that future research in the Dutch and European agri-food sector will always have access to the latest facilities. The equipment that will be concentrated in the centre can be used by both businesses and research institutes. The current investment relates to the first phase, in which no new buildings are to be constructed, and in which the equipment in Wageningen UR?s various laboratories remains in place in order to maintain the best possible connection with the necessary knowledge. A second phase is anticipated in which the facilities are to be centralised at Wageningen Campus.

According to Minister Van der Hoeven, "Because of CAT-AgroFood, smaller businesses in the food sector will also be able to take advantage of the latest technological developments."

Project manager Dr Frans Kampers of Wageningen UR said, "Effective innovation in the agri-food sector calls for combining the expertise of various disciplines together with market-oriented creativity. Consolidating the advanced infrastructure necessary for research and development creates a crystallisation point of science, instrumentation and industry in which cross-pollination and synergy can thrive. State-of-the-art facilities benefit the ideas which proceed from the new insights gained during research. The proximity of the various possibilities and the accompanying expertise results in unique combinations of techniques and technologies. At the same time, the centre forms a sort of shop window in which the latest technologies can demonstrate their value to research in the life sciences.?

Food Valley and Wageningen UR are unique throughout the world because they encourage cooperation in the agri-food field between a prominent academic knowledge institute and a widespread group of national and international businesses.

In the Holland Climate House we show results from different climate projects (scientific and policy), on adaptation as well as on mitigation. We place these results in international perspective and we are looking for international partner-ships. Download the program (November 19th available).
 
>> Read more

Restricted steering possibilities
Government steering in these developments is difficult. This is because it concerns complex international markets, but also because legislation ends by the European or even the Dutch border. In a separate report, Wageningen UR gives an overview of numerous existing institutes in the animal feed and energy sector which each exercise some influence through different instruments. The government will best be able to steer developments by entering into an intensive partnership with many of the actors involved. It is also desirable to develop an integrated approach because the animal feed sector and the bioenergy sector are becoming increasingly interwoven. Indirect government steering whereby support is given to private autonomous control systems has most potential.

More about this subject 

Dossier Biobased Economy 
Report 2009-048 Biomass for animal feed and energy; Scenario analysis of shift in raw material use (summary)
Report 2009-037 Animal feed or energy; Steering issues in the use of biomass (summary)

The report notes that good prospects exist for Ethiopia to further develop the oilseeds sector, at present being the second foreign exchange earner of the country. It underscores the high quality of Ethiopian oilseeds and advises to make extra efforts to strengthen the market position of high-value segments of the market in Europe, USA and Japan. For this it is important to develop assured chains and to export processed products like dehulled sesame or even better: edible oil.

Also, the report sees good opportunities to produce edible oil for the local market based on local production of oilseeds. At this moment the major part of the edible oil consumed in Ethiopia is imported. In addition, the report warns for the risk of monocropping in the case of sesame and stresses the need for increasing productivity through improving cultivation practices.

Policy brief

More information and online application

The course covers state-of-the-art thinking about participation from local to global level and introduces the most up-to-date methodologies and approaches for facilitation and participation. How MSPs and social learning relate to concepts such as innovation systems, complexity, interactive policy making and adaptive management is fully explored.

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Application deadlines:

With NFP funding - 1 February 2010 With other funding - 30 April 2010

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• What entails a M&E system for food and nutrition security and in particular what is needed to do an impact assessment
• Impact assessment in programme design and learning for impact
• Participatory approaches in assessing impact
• Use of different data for M&E
• Interpretation and communicating of results of M&E.

Application deadlines:

With NFP funding - 1 February 2010 With other funding - 24 April 2010

Application deadlines:

With NFP funding - 1 Novemer 2009 With other funding - 12 March 2010

More information and online application

More information and online application