Wageningen Transformation Initiative
Achieving true sustainability and equity in food, nature, water and biobased systems calls for a profound shift. Our societies’ values, structures and processes need to change. The Wageningen Transformation Initiative drives transformative change through multidisciplinary research, impactful education and practical expertise.
Through close collaboration with policymakers, NGOs, businesses and consumers, and by actively brokering connections between questions in society and the right expertise within Wageningen University & Research, the Wageningen Transformation Initiative develops insights and solutions that are holistic, forward thinking and locally grounded. By linking people, knowledge and disciplines, we foster interdisciplinary collaborations that truly make impact, contributing to meeting unique challenges with resilience and adaptability, from more sustainable production and healthier diets to reduced biodiversity loss.
Discover what we do
Fostering dialogue and collaboration
Transitions and transformations require collaboration between different parties, who often have differing visions, objectives and interests. By bringing together a diverse range of stakeholders, we can tackle even the most challenging transformation processes. Dialogue and co-creation are central to our approach. We provide support at every stage of the transformation process: from vision development to implementation, evaluation, scaling up or breaking through systemic lock-ins.
Get inspired
- Dialogue toolkit for agricultural dilemmas
- Perspectives for action in a nature-inclusive society
- Feeding cities & migration
- Accelerating just climate transitions
- Just Transition: scientific base for bringing the principles into practice
Get in touch with our experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Simone Ritzer and Herman Brouwer.
Fostering dialogue and collaboration
Transitions and transformations require collaboration between different parties, who often have differing visions, objectives and interests. By bringing together a diverse range of stakeholders, we can tackle even the most challenging transformation processes. Dialogue and co-creation are central to our approach. We provide support at every stage of the transformation process: from vision development to implementation, evaluation, scaling up or breaking through systemic lock-ins.
Get inspired
- Dialogue toolkit for agricultural dilemmas
- Perspectives for action in a nature-inclusive society
- Feeding cities & migration
- Accelerating just climate transitions
- Just Transition: scientific base for bringing the principles into practice
Get in touch with our experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Simone Ritzer and Herman Brouwer.
Responsible innovation and scaling up
Transformation depends on the alignment of technical, social and institutional changes. Thus, there are always multiple processes of innovation, scaling up, and scaling down happening at the same time, and the results can be desirable or undesirable. Through the Wageningen Transformation Initiative, we pool our knowledge and expertise to support responsible innovation and scaling.
Get inspired
- Transformative bioeconomies for materials transitions
- Bioenergy retrofits for Europe's industry
- Transition pathways
- Nature-inclusive agriculture: from revenue models in niches to upscaling
- "Ready to scale?" From innovations to system change
Neem contact op met onze experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Seerp Wigboldus and Cees Leeuwis.
Re-orienting business, markets and finance
Economic incentives and new ways of measuring progress are essential in the transition to sustainable systems, from food production to nature and water management. Through the Wageningen Transformation Initiative, we are helping businesses, markets and the financial sector to chart a new course.
Get inspired
- Towards sustainable and resilient EU farming systems
- Regenerative agriculture in Europe
- Nature-inclusive agriculture: from revenue models in niches to upscaling
Get in touch with our experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Ezra Berkhout and Miranda Meuwissen.
Overcoming lock-ins through policy and governance
In agriculture, water systems and food systems, there are deep-rooted lock-ins: mechanisms that perpetuate the status quo and lead to undesirable outcomes such as pollution, waste, loss of biodiversity and growing inequality. We investigate which factors perpetuate lock-ins and where ‘leverage points’ for change lie, in order to break through these undesirable barriers.
Get inspired
- Feeding cities & migration
- WUR perspectives on the future of agriculture and nature
- Transformative bioeconomies for materials transitions
- Transforming the normal towards sustainable future food consumption
- Governing means looking ahead - time to act
Neem contact op met onze experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Dave Huitema and Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters.
Exploring and assessing future options and trade-offs
Through the Wageningen Transformation Initiative, we offer specialised support in advanced transition modelling and analysis. This enables organisations to explore impacts, identify critical drivers and illuminate pathways for systemic change.
Get inspired
- Better policy decisions through clear visions of the future
- WUR perspectives on the future of agriculture and nature
- BrightSpace
- Transition pathways
Get in touch with our experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Kasper Kok and Just Dengerink.
Supporting monitoring and learning in transformation
To provide insights into the inner working and effects of transformations initiatives, programmes or organisation monitoring, learning and evaluation are essential. Wageningen developed and applied different approaches to realise monitoring, learning and evaluation for transformative contexts.
Get inspired
- Sustainable healthy diets through food systems transformation (ShiFT)
- Water transformation pathways planning (Trans-path)
- CONNECTS - transdisciplinary learning for societal transformation
- Reflexive monitoring in action
- Working towards sustainable dairy production
Get in touch with our experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Anne Charlotte Hoes and Marlene Roefs.
Creating enabling environments for behavioural change
Unsustainable and unhealthy behaviour is deeply ingrained in our society. This is particularly true of our food environment. Drawing on our expertise, we contribute to the redesign of environments so that healthy and sustainable becomes the most logical, attractive and accessible option for consumers, businesses and institutions.
Get inspired
- How can water management improve food security: the role of water valuation
- SWITCH: switching European food systems for a just, healthy and sustainable dietary transition
- Transforming the normal towards sustainable future food consumption
- Accelerating the transition to plant-based proteins
- How the food environment drives the protein transition
Get in touch with our experts
Contact persons for this challenge are experts Sanne Raghoebar and Marleen Onwezen.
Get inspired
Why choose the Wageningen Transformation Initiative?
This is what sets us apart:
- Combined agri-food & societal transformation insights
- Linking relevant expertise across disciplines
- Diverse perspectives united effectively and fairly
- Power and justice imbalances addressed
- Broker knowledge and values for change
Get in touch
Contact our brokering facility for support in turning your transformation challenges into meaningful opportunities.
Theme ambassadors for Wageningen Transformation Initiative
To connect and broker relevant expertise, WTI works with a diverse network of knowledgeable ambassadors on cross-cutting challenge.
Sustainable food systems
Biodiversity and resilient ecosystems
Health for all life
Biobased and circular society
Sustainable land and water use
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