PhD Position at the Zero Hunger Lab

Tilburg University is one of Europe’s leading universities in the fields of business and economics.  It ranks #28 worldwide in Business and Economics (Times Higher Education Ranking 2019) and #52 globally in research productivity in UT Dallas 2020.  The School of Economics and Management has 7000 students (26% international) and 400 academic staff (50% international).  The campus provides a green, academically centered environment with modern facilities and convenient local transportation.  Tilburg’s central position in the Benelux offers excellent regional and international access.  Major airports nearby include Amsterdam (Netherlands), Brussels (Belgium) and Düsseldorf (Germany).  English is the working language of the university.

The Zero Hunger Lab is a multidisciplinary environment where we aim to use Data Science in the broad sense to reduce hunger in the world; and by our research have impact. We work closely with the department of Econometrics and Operations Research at the School of Economics & Management.

Subject
The idea of this research is to use operations and supply chain analytics to identify food choices with low food loss and waste characteristics, high nutritional scores, and an overall lower environmental impact. This project is part of Tilburg University’s Zero Hunger Lab and a large new European initiative to reduce food loss and waste and work towards a more sustainable food system.  

This PhD project is part of a large European research project focused on the reduction of food loss and waste. Together with partners from across Europe, the goal is to identify, study, and demonstrate a variety of food system innovations that support ambitious goals in loss and waste reduction. This PhD project is based on the fact that reducing food waste and the environmental burden of our food system begin and end with the choices that consumers make. The objective of this project is therefore to develop recipes and menus with low expected food waste, high nutritional score, and low environmental impact of underlying supply chains. Also, the project aims to develop labels and scores to inform and trigger consumer behavioural change. The goal is also to demonstrate the use of macro-scale optimisation models that balance food waste reduction with high nutritional value and food affordability.