News
Royal decoration for Paul Struik
Professor Paul Struik, one of the chairholders in the Centre for Crop Systems Analysis at Wageningen University & Research, has received a royal decoration. The mayor of Paul’s hometown Utrecht, appointed him Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau today, 26 April 2022.
The order was given in recognition of a vast range of activities of societal importance, most of which as volunteer. This includes his role as chair of a highschool board for over 10 years, membership of a number of commissions including the Dutch expert commission on fertiliser law (CDM), and the sub-commission ethics and societal aspects of the commission on genetic modification (COGEM-ScEMA).
Paul – whose chair is part of the Plant Sciences Group – has also been editor-in-chief for more than 20 years of what is now the NJAS-Wageningen journal of life sciences but which started as The Netherlands journal for agricultural sciences and of Potato Research. Internationally he has been very important for the European Association for Potato Research (EAPR).
Contributions
Most important, however, has been his membership of the board of ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) and chair of the board’s research committee. And his contribution to the seed systems research agenda of a number of centres of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) notably ICARDA, CIP, CIAT, and their current challenge program on roots, tubers and bananas.
Next to this Paul also contributed through the supervision of well over 120 PhD students from six continents to global capacity building in agricultural research.
The colleagues of Wageningen University & Research warmly congratulate Paul Struik on his royal decoration.