News
Advisory Group meets for the first time
Last week, the Executive Board (EB) decided to work towards additional rules for partners who would like to cooperate with WUR. The EB has decided to add new criteria to the existing ones to assess whether the partner, and not just the project, contributes to the required global transitions stated in our Strategic Plan. The EB has tasked an Advisory Group with delivering a decision framework this autumn that WUR can use to assess collaborations with future partners, starting with the fossil industry. This week, the Advisory Group met for the first time.
The Advisory Group reflects the many perspectives on the issue, and is headed by Prof. Dr. Carolien Kroeze, Chair of the Environmental Systems Analysis group. During their first meeting, the advisory group first and foremost stressed the importance of a clear and transparent process. They discussed how to shape this transparency. One of the ideas is that they will give regular updates to the WUR community via the page Advisory Group on collaborations with WUR.
The Advisory Group also discussed how to connect with colleagues who at this moment face a complicated choice of whether or not to enter into a collaboration, to see whether the Advisory Group can support in this process and learn from it to develop the broader framework.
The Advisory Group further discussed the Terms of Reference, in which the EB has formulated the task for the group. A number of points were clarified by Rens Buchwaldt, the linking pin from the EB. The Advisory Group found that additional expertise in the area of environmental policy development was needed in the group. Aarti Gupta, Professor of Global Environmental Governance, will join the Advisory Group to address this.
Meeting with the EB
After the EB decision last week, there was an opportunity to join talks with the EB about the decision. In total, some 20 people joined over the course of 3 meetings. In its first meeting the Advisory Group discussed the input, ideas, concerns and thoughts raised during those meetings. You can find them here:
The Advisory Group will meet again next week to discuss a number of practicalities, such as the way to collaborate, how to involve stakeholders and frequency of the meetings.