Wageningen University & Research: Wageningen to provide Cellular Agriculture education and research
The Dutch government confirmed the allocation of €60 million to support an ecosystem for cellular agriculture, the technology to produce animal products, such as meat and milk proteins, directly from animal and microbial cells. It is the world’s largest financial support ever for cellular agriculture by a national government. Wageningen University & Research is one of the consortium partners and will work on education and research.
Education
In the Cellular Agriculture programme, WUR will develop three courses about precision fermentation, cultured meat, and the societal and sustainability aspects of cellular agriculture. The intention is that the Masters’ students taking these courses will specialise in this field. With sufficient student interest, a new Master’s programme may follow, which will be offered as a follow-up to several Bachelor’s programmes.
Research
Additional research capacity will also be created, particularly in the area of precision fermentation, by the appointment of a tenure tracker in this field and through investment in infrastructure. The programme will finance five PhD candidates in the fields of precision fermentation, protein structuring, food safety, and socio-economic aspects. In addition to the core programme, the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) will set up an open research programme.
Stimulus for protein transition
Wageningen professor Rene Wijffels of the Bio Process Engineering group is very enthusiastic: “The programme is a terrific stimulus for the protein transition. It connects with and builds on many of the areas of expertise at Wageningen University & Research. We work on animal cells, micro-organisms, and micro-algae here, and we can make an important contribution to this project. We will also contribute to research in the areas of social change, consumer behaviour, food safety, and sustainability.”
Collaboration with Maastricht and Delft
For education and research, WUR will closely collaborate with Maastricht University and Delft University of Technology.
Cellular Agriculture
All of the consortium’s activities aim to give the Dutch cellular agriculture (CA) ecosystem a major boost over the next eight years, including by developing fundamental and applied CA knowledge, providing CA companies with facilities for upscaling, and training appropriately qualified CA staff. This will make the Netherlands more attractive as a business location for companies in the CA sector.