News
New colleague Mieke de Wit joined ELS per March 2025
My name is Mieke de Wit and I joined ELS in March as part of ReGeNL, a project funded by the national growth fund (NGF) to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture in the Netherlands.
Through an integrative approach, ReGeNL includes farmers and the value chain, but also educational organisations training future actors in the food system. Which regenerative competences do they need to develop to support a regenerative agricultural system? Following the Whole School Approach, these educational organisations aim to align their curriculum, pedagogy, business operations, professional development and environment with regenerative principles. My role will be to coordinate this Whole University Approach to regenerative for WUR, in close collaboration with Arjen Wals, Margriet Goris, Louise van der Stok, Lian Kasper and Howard Koster.
I have a background in plant sciences and after ten years of research I always kept working in the academic context as programme manager and policy officer. For the last three years I worked at WUR for the Wageningen Biodiversity Initiative and the WUR investment theme Biodiversity-positive Food Systems. Next to coordinating the Whole University Approach to a regenerative WUR, I remain involved in the HE project ENABLS on mainstreaming Nature Based Solutions and biodiversity in higher education and vocational training, and in coordinating the Biodiversity Challenge.