Signature projects
Welcome to our Signature Projects page. Find out more about the initiatives that drive radical innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration to address global sustainability challenges. These projects embody our commitment to transformative research and out-of-the-box thinking. Explore the impactful work being done in university practices to create sustainable solutions and foster significant changes in various fields.
Shaping the Future of Sustainable Peatlands
Peatlands are a vital part of our natural environment, serving as significant carbon sinks, preserving unique biodiversity, and regulating water systems. In the Netherlands, these low-lying peatlands face severe challenges such as land subsidence, high CO2 emissions, salinization of water sources, and pressure from competing land uses. This Signature project focuses on developing a sustainable future vision for Dutch peatlands, particularly in the 'Groene Hart' region.
Healthy foods: (im)possible marketing?
Healthy and sustainable foods have become part of an undesirable frame of ‘oat milk elites’, ‘governmental meddling’ and ‘tastelessness’. Considering the enormous positive impact a plant-forward diet can have, this needs to change: we therefore want to make healthy and sustainable food fashionable by extending the mainstream marketing mix with additional partnership and policy aspects to reshape these foods into trending topics for the upcoming generation.
Financing Biodiversity
Biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate worldwide and the imperative for action has never been more pressing. The financial sector can potentially combat this decline and drive sustainable transitions within important industries, such as food, energy and infrastructure. The research team behind ‘Financing biodiversity’ is taking on the challenge to help Dutch institutional investors upscale their nature-positive investments, paving the way for a more sustainable future.
Tackling gender inequality and sustainability in agribusiness
The cut flower industry in Colombia is an example of the complex interaction between gender, labour, social and environmental issues. The low-skilled labour is mainly done by female workers. This Signature Project aims to unfold the intricacies of global value chains, hopes to raise awareness from consumers to producers through the power of theatre play.
Water-Energy-Land Impacts of Compound Weather Events
The WELCOME project addresses the growing challenge of compound weather events, extreme or co-occurring weather phenomena with significant cross-sectoral impacts on the water-energy-land nexus. The project develops a holistic framework to analyze these events, support climate adaptation strategies, and enhance preparedness through education and actionable insights.
Follow the Food: Leveraging Geographical Indications for Sustainability and Fairness
This project explores how Geographical Indications (GIs), like Parmesan or Champagne, can be used not just for branding, but to empower smallholder farmers, protect cultural heritage and promote sustainable agriculture. With case studies in Italy, Indonesia and Central Asia, the project reimagines GIs as tools for transformation in an unfair global food system.
RICE – Reimagining Constitutional Ecology
How can Europe and in particular the EU constitutionally ensure sustainability, equity, and democratic resilience within planetary boundaries, which is necessary for the survival of human beings and future generations? RICE brings together insights from law, philosophy, history, economics, and the arts to explore how we might reshape the values and assumptions that underpin European governance.
Data-driven nexus for sustainable building
This project will develop a global open-science platform connecting sustainable building strategies to their ecological and social impacts. By integrating fragmented data, the project empowers professionals to design regenerative, nature-based architectural solutions, turning the built environment into a force for ecological regeneration and sustainability.
Cooling Down The City
Urban areas are increasingly affected by heat stress due to climate change, densification and limited green space, posing serious risks to public health and well-being. Cooling Down the City focuses on how urban design choices can reduce heat stress and improve health outcomes. By combining citizen science, sensor-based monitoring and collaboration with urban developers, policymakers and public health experts, the project investigates how cooling interventions work in practice and how their impacts on health and liveability can be measured and improved.