Sustainability in research

Projects

• Sustainability Award

  The VU Sustainability Award Tiuri prize is designed to recognise an extraordinary commitment by a team: a) to a sustainability goal, and b) to find (new) ways to move forward or build bridges between groups with opposing views.  The sustained efforts show great commitment to sustainability and courage to take the road least travelled. 

  Criteria VU Sustainability Award Tiuri: 

  1. A team that sticks its neck out to create hope for sustainability at VU and in society, whether in research, teaching or service. The team is committed to a sustainability project that has so far received no formal recognition (e.g. grants or awards).

  2. The topic has societal impact. The effort should open up practices, conversations or other ways about a sustainability issue that causes tension, polarisation or paralysis. 

  3. The team's efforts are noticed by others, but have not (necessarily) led to peer recognition in the traditional way (i.e. research output) so far.  

  4. The team also shows a strong commitment to (academic) quality and creativity to find new ways.

• Matchmaking platform for researchers

  Many researchers at VU work on related topics, but in silos. Using Large Language Models (LLMs) and topic modelling, the research cluster aims to create profiles of all VU researchers. This way, the tool can be used for researchers who want to look beyond their silo and see the connections with other researchers working on related topics.

  An application for this matchmaking is currently being developed. Got curious? Read more here.

• Transition to plant-based diet at VU restaurant

  Since January, the VU restaurant has increased the range of plant-based options, experimented with a fully plant-based range in January and explored how to serve meat options. Working closely with VU services and Eurest, the research cluster held focus groups with students to find out more about what they think of these changes. The plan is to use the focus groups at multiple times as a barometer to learn what the VU community thinks about the transition to a plant-based diet.