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FAO and WUR announce exciting collaboration plans aimed at empowering young innovators
Under the Memorandum of Understanding between Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), WUR and World Food Forum (WFF) announced their new Innovation Alliance on 18 October, incorporating two important objectives for the first year: First, the Alliance aims to combine their existing activities for young innovative researchers and create follow up to teams in challenges like the Nature Based Solutions Challenge of WUR for even more impact. Second, the Alliance plans to launch an Innovation Incubator, to support young changemakers to turn their idea-stage solutions into ready-to-launch business plans.
“The partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Wageningen University & Research is characterized by a natural affinity of mutual interest and complementary strengths”, said Dr. ir. Sjoukje Heimovaara, President of the Executive Board of Wageningen University & Research during the announcement.
The World Food Forum has already collaborated with WUR, not only on a successful Transformative Research Challenge, but also on the implementation of an Innovation Masterclass with members of the WUR community on the topic of sustainable packaging. WUR’s team has shared expertise and connections from the research community with WFF’s young and youthful innovators around the world. “There is a great amount of leadership potential demonstrated by WUR that can inspire even more partnerships. It is great to build relationships with organizations that share FAO’s vision of a better food future through empowering youth in food innovation”, highlighted Kazuki Kitaoka, Coordinator of the World Food Forum.
After highlighting the successful existing collaboration, Dr. Heimovaara and Mr. Kitaoka announced the future collaboration plans: to work on new innovative youth-led projects that will strengthen sustainable food systems. ”In collaboration with FAO and the World Food Forum, we will form an Innovation Alliance based on strengthening joint efforts on existing projects”, said Dr. Heimovaara. “What makes this partnership meaningful and unique is our emphasis on global inclusiveness,” added Mr. Kitaoka, “When combining the ingenuity and optimism of youth through the World Food Forum along with the knowledge and technical resources of partners like WUR, the opportunities become endless.”.