Clarisse Kraamwinkel, Rafael Wittek, Rik Huizinga, Stefan Couperus: the first SuSo small grants of 2022 awarded to four innovative studies

Sustainable Society awards small grants. We do this to stimulate smaller and short term activities within the UG that are linked to the Sustainable Society theme, and as seed money to start larger projects. Below you can read which four grants we have awarded this semester. The next deadline for new applications is 1 June.

Clarisse Kraamwinkel (Campus Fryslân) receives a grant as partial funding for her field campaign and lab work. Kraamwinkel aims to improve the Soil Navigator, an openly available tool designed to evaluate soil functioning on agricultural soils in Europe, to perform well on local (peat) soils in the Northern Netherlands. This would enable farmers, advisors, policy makers and scientists to evaluate soil functions and get practical advice on how to optimize certain desired functions. The tool can be useful to tackle pressing issues like the nitrogen crisis.

Rafael Wittek (Social and Behavioral Sciences) receives a grant for research to understand how to develop new organizational forms along global value chains that can foster environmental regeneration. The program is a first step in international cooperation with the National University of Singapor (CGS), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and The Good Growth Foundation (GGF). The grant will be used to engage a researcher. He will work with a team. It willl produce a place-anchored animal fibre value chain system map. The researcher will particularly focus on the research initiatives that are relevant to the system and on organisations, businesses, and potential funders. The map will help illustrate the system to potential partners and and to help them appreciate benefits of participation. The grant is expected to help in cementing partnerships and to catalyse a further round of funding to build out a systemic research program and operationalise a pilot value chain.

Rik Huizinga (Faculty of Spatial Sciences) receives a grant for wider dissemination of his thesis as a UG product to relevant stakeholders. In his innovative thesis he takes a look at everyday lives practices of Syrian refugee man after forced migration and resettlement in the Netherlands and discusses how they develop feelings of home and belonging.

Stefan Couperus (Arts) receives a grant as support of the international Research School Political History summer school that is hosted this year by/at the UG. The booming field of environmental studies is bringing together ecologists, administrative and legal scholars, etc. Thus far political historians have played a minor role in this expanding field of study. The International Summer School will tease out the various themes of interest, by asking what new insights may be generated by applying the environment as a critical lens.