GRK 3128:  Diversification for Food Systems Resilience

• Subject Area: Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 544530435

Industrialization and globalization led to an increasing consolidation of the prevailing food systems, which takes advantage of economies of scale and is accompanied by a loss of diversity along the food supply chain. Today, few intensively cultivated crops are used worldwide as main ingredients in nutritionally poor, highly processed foods. This development is associated with strong negative environmental, social and health effects (externalities) and jeopardizes the resilience of our food systems to stressors or shocks like climate change, pandemics or plant diseases. The inter- and transdisciplinary RTG DIVERSILIENCE investigates how the loss of diversity in different parts of the food supply chain is characterized and interdependent and how diversity can be recovered to avoid externalities and secure food system outcomes through resilience to threats. Applied RTG-strategies for diversification are increased temporal and spatial diversity of cropping systems, improved biodiversity, increased diversity of supply and demand and enhanced diet diversity based on a greater variety of crops with reduced food processing. Conditioning factors for food system resilience will be identified based on an evaluation of the impact of diversification strategies on desired food system outcomes and an analysis of external effects. Resilience is conceptualized within the RTG from a holistic perspective to encompass social, economic and natural processes operating at many scales. Synergies and trade-offs between desired food systems outcomes like crop yields and other ecosystem services, financial profits or nutritional value are determined by objectives, motives and views of different stakeholders. Diversification strategies thus require interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary collaboration to overcome disciplinary barriers (silos) and enhance the transferability of outcomes. The RTG DIVERSILIENCE will qualify a new generation of scientists in a highly topical, socially relevant research field. The RTG curriculum consists of four modules that provide a balanced combination of supervising individual research projects, discipline-specific scientific education, a working environment for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration, and teaching transferable skills. Interdisciplinary education and collaboration will be achieved by supervisor tandems from different disciplines, the joint development of citizen science projects and “transdisciplinary partnerships” between individual projects, public authorities, private companies, and NGOs to facilitate mutual knowledge transfer. Co-design and co-production of knowledge ensure that research is application-oriented, tailored to the needs of society and organised in a participatory manner. This education, at the interfaces of commercial food systems, will provide the necessary skills of our graduates for the future labor market that demands thinking and acting in terms of complex systems and networks.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
• Participating Institution: Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN); Fraunhofer-Einrichtung für Individualisierte und Zellbasierte Medizintechnik (IMTE); Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut; Bundesforschungsinstitut für Ländliche Räume, Wald und Fischerei; Kiel Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW Kiel); Max Rubner-Institut; Bundesforschungsinstitut für Ernährung und Lebensmittel
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Anja Bosy-Westphal, Ph.D.
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Tim Diekötter; Professorin Dr. Nicola Fohrer; Professor Dr. Robert Hassink; Professorin Eva Holtgrewe-Stukenbrock, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Christina Hölzel; Privatdozentin Dr. Insa Kühling; Professor Dr. Frank Meisel; Professorin Dr. Annekatrin Niebuhr; Professor Dr. Ulrich Reinhard Orth; Professorin Dr. Marie-Catherine Riekhof; Professor Dr. Gerald Rimbach; Professor Dr. Carsten Schulz; Professorin Dr. Karin Schwarz; Professor Dr. Silvio Waschina