BSc Minor Climate-Resilient Crops: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Profile

Plant breeding has been enormously successful in increasing the yield, variety, and quality of crops we consume on a daily basis. However, it is a major challenge to meet the growing global demand for affordable agricultural products while adapting to climate change (leading to heat waves, droughts, floods, diseases, pests and poor soil) and increasing sustainability-driven constraints on agriculture. This challenge is further exacerbated by growing populations, dietary changes, and declining farmlands. A key element in addressing these challenges is the development of climate-resilient crops that, thanks to new genomic makeups and cultivation methods, thrive even under more variable, more unpredictable, and more often extreme abiotic and biotic stresses. Resilience is, however, a highly complex trait with multiple genes and processes interacting simultaneously and/or over time, involving many trade-offs. Even the most advanced current plant breeding techniques lack the ability to efficiently select for such traits. Moreover, actors in food systems around the world may have diverging views on what resilience traits are most important for their specific context, while the development and uptake of climate-resilient crops may also face various non-technological challenges related to organizational routines, government regulations, and market structures.

Thus, the CropXR institute was funded to disentangle these complex traits, develop a generation of more resilient crops, and train scientists in state-of-the-art methodologies which provide insights into the most important processes underlying plant performance under stress and subsequent societal deployment of these innovations. Such state-of-the-art approaches are highly multidisciplinary, combining recent developments in plant science, social science, and data science and modelling, and thus requires trained experts with affinity for combining all these aspects. In this minor, students will learn fundamental concepts of all three areas, the fields’ latest developments, and major challenges related to their integration. With this knowledge, we expect them to be able to tackle stakeholder needs and problems by providing sustainable and innovative solutions to develop climate-change resilient and future proof crops.

Program overview

To give structure to the minor we have created three clusters of courses. Students are encouraged to choose courses from the clusters they are least familiar with as this will provide a basic understanding on how different fields approach crop resilience-related problems and will allow them to communicate with students from other backgrounds more effectively.

NB: Clusters are only a suggestion to give students structure. If they want, they can ignore or combine clusters to tailor the minor towards their specific interests.

Cluster Quantitative Resilient Crop Development

This cluster focusses on teaching students about quantitative, modelling and/or computational techniques that are used for resilient crop development.

Cluster Biology of Resilient Crops

This cluster focusses on the (molecular) plant biology that underlies resilient crops.

Cluster Societal Impact of Resilient Crops

This cluster teaches students about different societal factors that play a role in how innovations can contribute to society, the different trade-offs that are involved, and about how to innovate responsibly.

Learning Outcomes

After successful completion of this minor students are expected to be able to:

Discuss the most relevant interdisciplinary aspects of climate resilient crop development
Explain and discuss the relevance of developments and challenges at the intersection of plant sciences, data sciences and social sciences
Advise stakeholders on a plant resilience-related problem, integrating aspects of plant sciences, data sciences and social sciences

BSc Minor Coordinator

Dr. EJR (Elysa) Overdijk; please contact through email: resilientcrops.pph@wur.nl

Target Group

Anyone with an interest in learning more about the challenge to develop climate change resilient crops and the various disciplines that support this. Basic knowledge on biology (high-school level) is assumed. Students can come from a social science, plant science, or data science background, e.g. any student from these programs:

BSc (WUR): Biology, Biotechnology, Plant Sciences, Molecular Life Sciences, Communication and Life Sciences, Data Science for Global Challenges, International Development Studies etc.

BSc (other universities): Life Sciences, Data Science, Computer Science, Global Sustainability Science, Artificial Intelligence, Molecular and Biophysical Life Sciences, Molecular Science and Technology, Computational Social Science, Future Planet Studies, Natuurwetenschap en Innovatiemanagement etc.

HBO: Biology, Agriculture, Horticulture, Food Systems Innovation, Life Sciences etc.

Assumed knowledge

Basic knowledge on biology (high-school level)

Language

English

Semester

First semester (period 1, 2 and 3)

Programme or Thematic

Programme minor