dr. MPM (Margreet) van der Burg

Margreet van der Burg is senior university lecturer and researcher, appointed in ‘gender studies/history related to food, agricultural and rural research and development’, at Wageningen University (WU) since 2002. She examines food, agricultural and rural research, innovation and development taking the gender dimension as intersecting with other social dimensions (gender+/intersectionality). It includes gender and the development of agricultural educational and knowledge systems, family farming, agriculture oriented organisations, as well as rural, agricultural and food iconography and heritage. Her focus expanded from the Netherlands to European/western countries; since 2000s to the global level, both historical and contemporary.

She started at WU in 1989 at Rural History, in which she collaborated with Gender in Agriculture. In 2002 she gained her PhD social sciences for her research on education and other development institutions that fostered a gender-specific integration of farm/rural women in agricultural and rural modernisation in the Netherlands, 1863-1968. This followed her study in social economic history with social sciences and development studies courses at Nijmegen University, where she also taught women’s history and ‘science and society’ courses till 1991.

She combined her WU appointment
* 2006, half year: Rural Gender Studies Guest Professor in the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Professoriate Program from Lower Saxony, Institute for Rural Development, Fac. of Agricultural Sciences, Goettingen, Germany.
* 2015/2016, half visiting scholar with Carolyn Sachs, Professor Rural Sociology and Women’s Studies, PennState University, USA.
* Jan. 2019-2023: WUR daily project leader, EU Horizon 2020 Gender-SMART, no 824546, focusing on agriculture and life sciences (Science for and with Society programme); and work package leader for gender integration in education, research and funding.
* 2020-end gender co-expert regarding institutional learning, NUFFIC OKP-IRA-104278 PROJECT with 6 Iraq universities on Water Management by Climate Smart Capacity Building and Knowledge Development
* ongoing, 2021-: gender expert & chair gender committee, EU Horizon 2020  SPRINT, no 862568 on Sustainable Plant Transition Research, and 2022 -: gender expert, EU Horizon 2020 HOLiFOOD, no 101059813 enhancing a Holistic approach for tackling food systems risks in a changing global environment

Through the years, she engaged in many scientific and outreach activities such as conferences, TV documentaries, and travelling exhibitions as well as in building professional organisations. Recently, she co-organised the 4-days online open global conference ‘Cultivating Advancing Gender Research in Agriculture and Food Systems’, 12-15 Oct 2021. She served in multiple professional boards; by now ongoing chair of UWF Storm-van der Chijs Fund encouraging WUR women to pursue their academic career.

Most complete list of publications, see Google Scholar!