Front-of-pack nutrition labelling, origin labelling, regulation of voluntary green claims made by food business operators: the EU is currently looking into various reforms of the legal framework for food information to consumers. The goal: healthier and more sustainable diets.

Is Europe skilling for sustainable food?

Between the 30th of January and the 2nd of February 2020 around 250 people took part in the II Polish Food Sovereignty Forum.

In September 2023 the new minor Sustainability, Climate Change and Food starts. This minor critically examines the complexities of food sustainability through ecological, socio-economic, political, and cultural systems.

On the first weekend of June a plot of land in Lutkemeerpolder, West Amsterdam, was occupied in order to host the Food Autonomy Festival. The event was organized in solidarity with local farms to protest against the development of Schiphol airport-oriented business park. Two of our PhD's, Maria Vasile…

Creating a good life and new work values through foodwork?

On Friday 4th February 2022 we welcomed in hybrid format (in person and online live streaming) 154 registered participants, of which 97 online, to present the first results of the Food Citizens? ERC Consolidator project.

According to a new study, for half of the world population the answer would be yes. For the other half: maybe? Leiden environmental researcher and head author Nicolas Navarre explains: ‘With improvements to crop yields, reductions in food waste, and changes in consumption patterns, 90% of people could…

“Neighborhood solidarity cannot compensate the absence of the State: a response from the local administration is needed”

Nanomaterials can pass much further along the food chain than was previously thought. The particles can change shape and size in each organism, enabling them to pass on to the next one in the chain. Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Sciences discovered this accidentally when using a novel…

Microwear and starch grain analysis on experimental and archaeological grinding tools from Central

Horizon Magazine published about urban food systems.

Advisory Board member Colin Sage shares insights about the Food Citizens? project.

At the project closure on February 29, 2024.

The Food Citizens? team has contributed in the special issue of the ICA journal. The semi-scientific journal of the study association Itiwana of Leiden University's Institute of Cultural Anthropology.

In January 2020, the team took a break from their respective field sites and travelled back to Leiden to take stock of their research progress and to host its third Advisory Board meeting at their home institution, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden Universit…

Psychologist Hilmar Zech found that overweight people are actually more attracted to food pictures after eating than before. He did so using an old research method that he revamped for use on smartphones. Zech will defend his PhD on 30 April.

Fungal food spoilage often starts with a contamination with spores. Experimental data strongly indicate the existence of subpopulations of spores with different levels of resistance to preservation methods.

In late May 2019, the Food citizens? team traveled to Poland for a project meeting and team outing. This was made possible by the European Research Council’s support and facilitated networks and knowledge-generation.

Violent conflicts and civil wars in Chad impede most rural households' access to food security, agricultural activities and access to essential services such as health care. In her dissertation, Nakar Djindil Syntyche denounces this issue. She obtained her PhD on 24 November.

Bacteria whirl around in the mouths of most people, forming dental plaques and sometimes causing nasty gum infections. Treponema denticola might be a dangerous pathogen, but not much is known about this bacterium. It was up to Ariane Briegel and her research group to change that.

Planet formation is a surprisingly homogeneous process that does not take place gradually from inside out, but that occurs everywhere at the same time in a proto-planetary disc, as Dave Lommen has discovered. He will obtain his doctorate this week based on his research into the dust around young stars…

The number of lions in Kenya is decreasing alarmingly, due partly to the encroaching cities and the development of the countryside. Together with local scientists and inhabitants, Leiden biologists are studying how this decline can be halted. ‘Lions are cleverer than we thought.’

How can we organize the food system in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region in a more sustainable and democratic way? Prof. Cristina Grasseni gave a presentation of her work at the Food Council Metropolitan Region Amsterdam.

Image from ESOF Forum programme page.

We asked our Winter School students to evaluate the effect and significance of this learning experience on their current research trajectories and future plans. Here are some reflections.

Our Winter School alumna Ginevra Montefusco defended her Master thesis this March with the title Food in the Margin: a feminist analysis of sense of place in Barriera di Milano, Turin (supervisors: Alessia Toldo and Egidio Dansero).

A political science perspective on our project’s comparative ethnography. I truly enjoyed the one-day conference on February 4th where the research results have been shared with the members of the Advisory Board. The work conducted so far is impressive, and the case studies are very useful in understanding…

Advisory Board member Francesca Forno shares insights about the Food Citizens? project.

Are you a great photographer? Or not at all, but you do have a brilliant photo that captures the relationship between food and people? Join the photo contest ‘Food & Society’ of our Faculty and send in your best photo before 3 April 2018!

PhD defence

The rapidly increasing commercial application of metallic nanoparticles within products will inevitably enhance the amount of NPs being released into soil.

International trade plays a critical role in global food security, with global consumption having highly localized environmental impacts.

The Dutch Royal Couple received 70 scientists at the yearly gala for the Diplomatic Corps at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam on 14 June 2023.

Practically the whole world came together on International Cultural Night on 29 November. International students got together on this night organised by Meeting Point for Refugee Students and showed their culture through dance, poetry, film and of course food. A great source of inspiration for fascinating…

We investigate bacteria and fungi to understand their malicious or beneficial impact on food crops and their pathogenic or antibiotic role in human health.

The Winter School of the Food Citizens? project has been a success! Running from Monday 24th January to Friday 4th February 2022, with this milestone we handed down the project’s methodological toolkit as a team. Nine participants attended in Leiden, coming from Belgium, Ghana, Italy, Lithuania, the…

The environment also benefits when people follow national nutritional guidelines, Paul Behrens demonstrated in research published in PNAS. The publication attracted media attention both at home and internationally.

The flavour of foodstuffs can be predicted by measuring the dynamic of their chemical components. Researchers, including Thomas Hankemeijer, will receive a grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for research in this area. They will work with DSM and Unilever.

Rebecca Tompkins defended her thesis on 21 March 2019

Promotor: J.M. van den Broek Co-promotor: M.C. de Vries