News
TO2 institutes launch annual Impact Report with special corona section
The TO2 institutes (TNO, WUR, Deltares, NLR and MARIN) will publish their 2020 Impact Report this week. Created in close collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, the magazine illustrates how their research and the resulting solutions contribute to a sustainable, clean, healthy and safe future for the Netherlands.
A significant part of this research is funded by the government, and the TO2 institutes involved are glad for the opportunity to call attention to the results they have achieved in this accessible magazine.
The articles follow a number of themes from the mission-driven ‘Top Sectors and Innovation Policy’, being Energy Transition and Sustainability, Agriculture, Water and Food, Health and Care, and Safety. This year a special section has been added that focuses on the corona crisis, where TO2 projects are also making an impact. “These projects have produced many adaptive and rapidly deployable applications this year,” says State Secretary for Agriculture Mona Keijzer. “The pandemic demonstrates how important such applications are and I really appreciate the commitment of the TO2 institutions to this research.”
The report describes various concrete projects, such as Heat Batteries for Energy Storage, Safe Shipping in the North Sea, Safe Sharing of Privacy-sensitive Healthcare Data, Light as a Weapon, and various practical tools to use in the fight against corona.
Wageningen University & Research contributed to the following research:
- Challenge: less food in the waste container
Nobody wants to throw food away, yet it happens all the time. Together with consumers, businesses and the government, researchers of Wageningen University & Research will try to halve food waste by 2030. What obstacles lie in their path? - Nature likes to lend a hand
Wadden islanders used to place dams made of poles and branches in the Wadden Sea to break the waves. Today, researchers of Wageningen University & Research have joined forces with Deltares and various business partners to apply this age-old technique to a mangrove recovery project on the island of Java, in Indonesia. By cooperating with nature, they will help prevent a coastline from being washed away. - Less antibiotics means healthier animals
The use of antibiotics in farming has fallen sharply since 2009. Livestock farmers feared a loss of production and a weaker competitive position, but their fears were unnecessary, according to a study by Wageningen University & Research into broiler and pig farms.