Food and health have become key priorities for most EU member states during the last decades. This is a consequence of the continent-wide growing obesity epidemic and high rates of diet-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. In addition, adjusted dietary patterns for certain population groups, such as elderly people and pregnant women, should be promoted. The ultimate goal is to promote a healthier eating pattern for the complete population. 
At first, raising public awareness of appropriate ways to eat more healthily was the approach used by most EU Member States, to tackle diet-related problems in the population. However, the impact of increasing public awareness appeared to be not sufficient to significantly change the eating behavior of consumers. Therefore, new methods need to be used in order to reach a systematic change in eating behavior. It has become clear that the development of effective measures for improvement is a demanding task and requires further systematic research and innovative approach. One main question that this research needs to tackle is the role that innovation in food and new basic research technologies could play in counter-acting the alarming rise of diet-related problems. The dialogue between scientific and civil society communities is essential in this matter. In order to begin to address the use of research and innovation in the food industry, INPROFOOD project was started.

INPROFOOD is a three-year project involving 17 partners across 13 EU countries. The project gets funded, as an FP7-project, by the European Commission. Goal of the project is to foster dialogue and mutual learning between industry, academia and civil society already in the earliest stages of the research processes. The dialogue between these three key players should be directed towards performing effective research and developing innovative approaches (technical and social) for dealing with the food and health challenge. It was developed from the basis that social discourse among research institutions, industry and civil society is a basic pre-requisite for moving towards a more reliable and achievable vision.

The project has been divided into seven work packages, around different key activities. INPROFOOD uses several methods to visualize and promote the dialogue between academia, industry and civil society, of which the most important are interviews, workshops and an Open Space Conference. Interviews were conducted in all participating countries, to map the current process of research programming and identify important stakeholders in the field of food in the participating countries. Next, several workshops were organized in all countries, as a participatory needs assessment. In these workshops, stakeholders from industry, academia and civil society organization could give their view on the best and worst case scenario, regarding the funding of research in the field of food and health. In addition, a European Open Space Conference has been organized, where all relevant actors could express their ideas concerning the design of food research. Finally, the outcomes of all activities will be used in the development of an action plan for the future of research programming. The results of all activities will be reported and distributed to all interested parties.

The Law Faculty of Maastricht University is involved in the INPROFOOD project, as representative of the Netherlands. The team of Maastricht University is involved in mapping and analyzing current processes of research programming in the area of food and health, via conducting interviews and organizing workshops. In addition, we are involved in the development of an action plan, with the goal to promote societal engagement, drawing on the insights obtained through those interviews and workshops.

More information on the INPROFOOD project and already published results can be found on the project’s website www.inprofood.eu.

• Closing Conference INPROFOOD
• Workshop ‘Inclusive research programming and implementation’
• Workshop Copenhagen
• Project presentation Brussels

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Workshop ‘Inclusive Research Programming and Implementation’

On October 8, INPROFOOD will organise a workshop in cooperation with the Eatwell project of Maastricht University. The day will be divided in two parts, on research programming in food and health and the implementation and enforcement of regulations regarding food. 

Since the INPROFOOD project will finish on 31 October 2014, the team of Maastricht University organised this workshop as a final dissemanation acitivity. Activities of the last three years and their results will be presented, together with recommendations for future research programming in food and health. 

The second part of the day will focus on implementation and enforcement of the Health and Nutrition Claim Regulation in several EU Member States. This EU regulation has been designed with the idea to prevent consumer misleading, communicate an honest message to consumers and prevent unfair competition on the market. Although this is a European regelation, implementation and compliance is partly in hands of the national authorities. During the workshop the compliance strategies of several Member States will be discussed. In addition, an economic and legal view on different enforcement strategies will be presented by several expert. 

Location of the workshop will be the Limburgs Museum in Venlo and the duration is from 12.00 untill 19.00. For more information and registation, please contactm.urlings@maastrichtuniversity.nl.

In order to spread the results in a convenient way, several so-called policy papers have been developed. Each document contains information and results of one or more project activities. The results are focused on the methodology of the project as well as on the specific outcomes of the activities.   

Official policy paper 1
Official policy paper 2
Official policy paper 3 
Official policy paper 4
Official policy paper 5

Dissemination and communication of results to the public are of great importance for the success of the project. Within INPROFOOD, this activity is laid down in Work Package 6 which falls under responsibility of the consortium members from Portugal. In order to optimise dissemination strategies in other projects, Portugal has developed a document with their main findings around successful dissemination. This document has been designed also in light of other so-called ‘Science in Society’ projects, which aim to bridge the gap between scientific research and the public.

• To identify and measure integration outcomes, integration policies, and other contextual factors that can impact policy effectiveness
• To describe the real and potential beneficiaries of policies in seven key areas, namely employment, education, political participation, access to nationality, family reunification, long-term residence, and anti-discrimination.
• To collect and analyse high-quality evaluations of integration policy effects.

The key research outputs will be an interactive website building on the successful MIPEX website and an E-book presenting all the data through easy-to-use country profiles, analysis, and databases. This data will be calculated separately for every country and for each of the seven policy areas. In order to deliver these outputs, the MIPEX team will:

• Update policies - the project will provide detailed and comparable accounts of the most recent policy changes, building on the baseline data gathered in the MIPEX research. A new strand on health will be added in partnership with the COST/ADAPT research network and the International Organisation for Migration.
   
• Collect and analyse statistical information on policy outcomes, context, and beneficiaries.
   
• Identify and analyse evaluations of policy effects in at least 10 Member States. 
   
• Publish and disseminate the results - press campaign will be organised in all 28 EU Member States and in-depth policy debates in at least 12. At the final event in Brussels, the results of the research, evaluations and national debates will be presented, aiming to link national with European debates and the Stockholm Programme with the Europe 2020 strategy.

The project “Integration policies: Who benefits?” is co-funded by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals. The project started in November 2013 and will finish in April 2015. 

The project will conduct a complete review of integration outcomes, policies, and beneficiaries in the 28 EU Member States. In addition, the project aims to include other countries, Norway, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, and major OECD countries of immigration, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US (at the costs of partners in these countries).

We also offer several conferences in Dutch, for information please click on the Dutch version of this page above.

SBE has been awarded three prestigious accreditations, AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA, resulting in what is known as the Triple Crown accreditation. Only 1% of business schools worldwide can boast this honour, many of which are SBE partner institutes. 

Since 1916, AACSB International has been granting accreditation for business and accounting programmes at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level. This is the hallmark of excellence in management education: accredited institutions confirm their commitment to quality and continuous improvement through a rigorous peer review. SBE was awarded the AACSB accreditation in 2002 and reaccredited in 2012 and 2017.

EQUIS is the leading European system of quality assessment and accreditation for higher education in management and business administration. EQUIS looks for top academic quality, close interaction with the corporate world, innovation in programme design and pedagogy, community outreach and internationalisation. SBE was awarded the EQUIS accreditation in 2005 and reaccredited in 2008, 2011 and 2016. 

Accreditation by the AMBA, a UK organisation, is recognised as the global standard for master’s and PhDs in Business Administration (MBAs and DBAs). The focus is on individual programmes, guaranteeing the highest standards of teaching, innovation, and staff and student interaction. SBE was awarded the AMBA accreditation in 2007 and reaccredited in 2012.

The NVAO is the accreditation organisation set up by the Dutch and Flemish governments to assess higher education quality. All of SBE’s regular bachelor’s and master’s programmes are NVAO accredited. 

The (Graduate) School of Business and Economics was reviewed by a committee concerned with the academic quality and societal relevance of research in economics and business in September 2015 over the period 2008-2014. On 12 January 2016 (G)SBE received the final report of the committee.