We joyfully announce the two researchers of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship

In December 2020 we began a new adventure with the call for the Daniel Carasso Fellowship, a grant for research in sustainable food with the aim of supporting young postdoctoral researchers of any nationality and scientific discipline, committed to systemic research on sustainable food in Spain.

The initiative was very well received by the scientific community, there was a very diverse participation and, given the high quality of the projects received, the jury decided to award ex aequo to the Spanish Raquel Ajates González and the Colombian Daniel Gaitán Cremaschi.

We are very happy with the selection of the projects “The challenge of seed digitalization: sustainability, big data and the social movement for open source seed systems”, which will be developed by the young researcher Raquel Ajates González at the National University of Distance Education (UNED) and “Sustainable food public procurement in Spain. Evidence to date and opportunities for its scaling”, by Daniel Gaitán Cremaschi, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).

The trajectory of both selected candidates fits perfectly with two of the objectives of the initiative we launched: the recovery and consolidation of research talent in Spain. Proof of this is that Raquel Ajates González, a graduate in Psychology and a PhD in Food Policy, has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Dundee (United Kingdom) in two citizen science and sustainability projects within the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. Thanks to this recognition, Ajates returns to Spain to join the UNED research team.

On the other hand, Daniel Gaitán Cremaschi, a graduate in Ecology and PhD in Sustainability of Food Systems has been part of the SEVERAS project – Socio-Environmental Vulnerability in rural Spain at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he will also carry out his new research proposal.

Two projects with great transformative potential for the transition to sustainable food systems

Thanks to the Daniel Carasso Fellowship, Raquel Ajates González will join the National University of Distance Education to map and analyze seed systems in Spain, from an integrated perspective, investigating their socioeconomic, sustainability and political dimensions; she will also explore how seeds are governed, shared and protected to identify the possibilities to maximize their contribution to biodiversity. social justice and the sustainability of the food system.

Daniel Gaitán Cremaschi, will continue his research career at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he will analyze sustainable food public procurement initiatives at the national level to provide keys on where and how to carry out the necessary modifications in public policies to achieve better results, define where there are barriers to their execution and propose long-term development in view of sustainability transitions in the systems Food.

On October 14, we will hold the Daniel Carasso Fellowship award ceremony in Madrid, an event in hybrid format to celebrate science and present Raquel Ajates and Daniel Gaitán with the commemorative award of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship 2021, a sculpture by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Very soon we will be revealing more details about this event that can also be followed online.

A process of warm and scientifically rigorous accompaniment of experts from different disciplines and nationalities

Numerous experts from different disciplines and nationalities have committed themselves and have accompanied us to make the Daniel Carasso Fellowship a tool for the transition to more sustainable food systems. Thanks to them we have been able to guarantee the rigour, excellence and quality of the process that the initiative required in its different stages.

The Guidance Committee has guided the entire process, from the definition of the bases of the call and the selection process, to the conception of the award event. The Pre-Selection Committee was in charge of evaluating the proposals received and shortlisting the six applications with the greatest potential to promote the transition to sustainable food systems, in accordance with the criteria established in the call.

Finally, a jury made up of six members conducted individual interviews with the finalists and selected, given the high quality of the projects received, the two young researchers of this edition: Raquel Ajates González and Daniel Gaitán Cremaschi.

We thank all those experts who have joined our commitment to support pioneering initiatives in the field of food that bring to light the most sustainable practices because for us, multidisciplinary and shared work is the key to success.

We are starting a new path together in which we will closely follow the development of Raquel and Daniel’s research projects over the next two years, the first members of the community of young researchers committed to Sustainable Food that we seek to generate with this initiative. We are sure that their results will provide fundamental keys to promote the systemic transformation of our food systems that will allow us to move towards a more sustainable and better nourished society.