Why this programme
At Sustainable Food Systems at UCV, you’ll learn how to truly transform food: from sustainable farming to conscious consumer choices. Through behaviour, health, and responsible innovation, you’ll work on solutions for a healthier, more sustainable food system. Ready to make an impact?
What are food systems?
Imagine this: biologists cultivate a climate-resistant tomato. Great, but what’s next? With Sustainable Food Systems, you ensure such innovations don’t stay stuck in the lab. You explore how to get them from the greenhouse to the supermarket and whether people actually want to buy them. What can they cost? What policies are needed to scale up production?
In short, you connect every link in the food system, from seed to plate. You bridge science, market, and policy to turn innovative ideas into societal change. You’ll tackle questions like these:
- Why do people drink too much energy drink, even though they know it’s bad for them?
- Will people eat a new, sustainable, super-healthy, but purple, banana?
- What’s healthier, and why: protein-enriched yoghurt or fibre-rich bread?
Choose your own courses
Sustainable Food Systems at UCV is the only program where you can combine these three pillars:
- Behaviour – why do people do what they do?
- Health – how does nutrition affect our bodies and society?
- Responsible innovation – how do you turn knowledge into real change?
You choose your own courses, drawing from subjects within these pillars or across all three. This makes you an all-rounder who connects disciplines and spots what specialists, whether biologists, health scientists, or psychologists, might miss. With your personal academic advisor, you shape your bachelor’s degree to perfectly match the master’s or career you have in mind.
Small-scale education and projects
- Because society requires scientists who can think outside the box, UCV focuses on collaboration in all areas:
- Multidisciplinary research entails bringing together researchers from several fields
- Interdisciplinary research takes it a step further by requiring researchers to be knowledgeable and comprehend each other's fields
- Transdisciplinary research involves people other than researchers in the conception and execution of the research
I chose Venlo also because I appreciate the problem-based learning approach Maastricht University offers. Your professors here do not tell you how many grammes of protein a human need to consume daily; instead, they ask you why your body requires that amount of protein. This forces you to think about the subject.
UCV in short
- Combine behaviour, health, and responsible innovation
- Design your own path, guided by your personal academic advisor
- Small-scale, personalised education
- International academic community, all teaching in English
- Close collaboration with businesses and researchers
- Student housing on campus
I greatly benefit from being able to collaborate, which I learnt during the problem-based learning groups, as well as skills like logical reasoning and argumentation.
Venlo: the centre of food innovation
Venlo is no ordinary student city. Here lies the heart of Europe’s most innovative agro-food region, with research institutes, startups, and industry leaders all within walking distance of your lecture hall.
You’ll study in Venlo’s city centre but also work regularly at Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo, home to our laboratories in life sciences, nutrition, robotics, and horticulture.
Sustainable Food Systems at UCV collaborates with:
- System Earth Sciences
- Brightlands Future Farming Institute
- Brightlands High Tech Agro
- Centre for Healthy Eating & Food Innovation
- NovaBite
Venlo isn’t a large, traditional student city, and that’s its strength. Here, you live and learn in a close-knit international community, with the campus as your home base. You have direct access to the world shaping the future of food. In Venlo, you help build the food system of tomorrow.
Read more about Venlo as a student city
Prefer more biology and engineering?
Would you rather become a biologist and delve into the biochemistry and genetics of food crops? Then our Sustainable Bioscience programme might be for you. Take a look and compare!
BEET study association
At Sustainable Food Systems at UCV, it’s not just about studying; it’s about creating unforgettable experiences together. From drinks and lectures to sports tournaments and study trips, you’ll make your student life memorable. Whether you want to relax, make new friends, or broaden your horizons, you’ll find it all at BEET.
Going abroad
If you have a general interest in the subjects that UCV offers, I will always recommend UCV because the programme allows you to experiment with your courses until you find the topics that interest you most.
