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Jeroen Dijkman appointed managing director Animal Sciences Group

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July 13, 2020

The executive board has appointed Dr Jeroen Dijkman as managing director of the Animal Sciences Group. The appointment comes into effect on 1 September 2020. Dijkman succeeds Dr Martin Scholten, who has taken on a new position within WUR on 1 June. Dijkman currently holds the positions of (international) director of of the New Zealand Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Research Centre and Senior Technical Coordinator for the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Agriculture Initiative, where he works on the contribution of the livestock sector towards sustainable agro-food systems.

Jeroen Dijkman is an active participant in the broad political and societal arena and has over three decades of governance experience in research and development within the livestock farming sector. He has a large international network with links to all the important stakeholders ranging from the private sector to local governments and from the UN to civic organisations. He worked with, and for, a variety of international NGOs, CGIAR and national research centres, the World Bank and UN agencies across the globe. Among other positions, he worked as a senior officer of the Animal Production and Health Division of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Here, he was one of the initiators of the Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative and the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock.

Dijkman obtained his MSc at the faculty of veterinary sciences at the University of Edinburgh in 1989, followed by his PhD in 1994 at the same faculty.

‘Working for WUR is a unique opportunity to contribute to the sustainable future of agro-food systems’,  Dijkman says. ‘Contributing to this goal is both inspiring and motivating.’