Wageningen University & Research Welcomes Coen Smits as Special Professor Advancing Sustainable Animal Nutrition with Functional Ingredients
The executive board of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) has appointed Prof Coen Smits as special professor of Functional ingredients for sustainable animal nutrition. The chair recently came into effect and is funded by Nutreco.
Within this new chair, Smits will focus on education and development in the field of functional ingredients for sustainable animal nutrition. Key themes are reducing the environmental footprint, increasing circular use of raw materials and supporting animal health.
He will start his research by modelling the effects of functional ingredients and nutritional programmes on animals and the environment through combined use of animal response models and life-cycle analysis (LCA) methods. The chair Functional ingredients for sustainable animal nutrition resides under the Animal Nutrition group of prof. Walter Gerrits and prof. Wouter Hendriks.
Coen Smits
Coen Smits studied animal nutrition at Wageningen University and then held his first position as a researcher at animal nutrition institute De Schothorst. During this period, he conducted his PhD research on the effects of feed viscosity on fat digestion in broilers.
Smits then held various research positions at Trouw Nutrition in the field of pig and poultry nutrition and development of functional ingredients, often focusing on animal health and environmental impact. He led several Research & Development (R&D) consortia involving multidisciplinary collaboration between research groups focused on animal nutrition and human nutrition. Nowadays, Smits devotes himself to programme development for the benefit of sustainable livestock farming.