We announce the three winners of the second edition of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship

Last January we kicked off the second edition of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship programme aimed at researchers committed to sustainable food systems and diets. On this occasion, we are pleased to report that we have received a wide range of applications from various fields, such as agronomy, food science and technology, social sciences, marine sciences and biomedicine. This range of disciplines reflects the diversity from which sustainable food can be promoted.

The quality of the proposals received has been extraordinary, which has led to a special decision on the part of the foundation. Instead of awarding two researchers as was done in the previous edition, we have decided to recognize the work of three scientists. It is an honour to announce that the award-winning researchers are Marta Albo Puigserver, Ujué Fresán Salvo and Adrián González Guzmán. This recognition highlights the foundation’s commitment to excellence in research and the promotion of innovative solutions for sustainable food.

The selected projects include climate change in a transversal way and the role of food in contributing to the adaptation and mitigation of the climate crisis. The jury highlighted the multi-stakeholder approach of all of them with the involvement of different agents to achieve a high impact of the research projects.

“This edition clearly reflects the relevance of this call to stimulate and disseminate initiatives capable of contributing to raising awareness and generating interesting strategies that promote more sustainable food systems,” says Carmen Pérez Rodrigo, member of the jury and of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition. In addition, Nicolás Bricas, member of Cirad – IPES Food and president of the jury, stressed that “the proposals received this year show, from various approaches, the mobilisation of research in the face of the challenges of the necessary transformation of our food systems and how it is being addressed in a different way, working more closely with the actors that make it up”.

The three winners share the Foundation’s vision of sustainable food and put their talent at the service of the food transition in our country with different research projects. Our sincere congratulations to Marta Albo for Climate Resilience of Small-Scale Fisheries in the Balearic Islands: Assessment of Food Security in the Fisheries Sector and Possible Adaptation Measures (ReFISH-Food); to Ujué Fresán Salvo for Environmental Nutrition: The Path from a Pioneering Methodology Integrating the Health and Environmental Impact of Feed to the First nLCA Database in Spain; and Adrián González Guzmán and his project Formulation of filters, through the use of waste, for the capture of nitrogenous gases from slurry and their application as organomineral substrates inoculated in agriculture.

Thanks to the Daniel Carasso Fellowship, Marta Albo Puigserver, an expert in marine ecology and specialized in the study of trophodynamics, assessments of the climatic vulnerability of exploited marine species and marine socio-ecological systems, will develop her project at the Oceanographic Center of the Balearic Islands, which depends on the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, Spanish National Research Council (CN-IEO-CSIC).

Her project seeks to design and implement specific climate adaptation plans for small-scale fisheries in the Balearic Islands. This will allow us to understand the current vulnerability of the sector on the islands and analyse the possible adaptation measures that should be implemented to achieve a balance between the environmental, cultural and socio-economic factors of the seafood supply chain.

During his career, Ujué Fresán Salvo has focused on the promotion of healthy and sustainable diets. Her award-winning project will be carried out in the eHealth department of ISGlobal-Campus Mar in Barcelona, focusing on promoting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in nutrition (nLCA).

Based on three pillars, her research seeks to identify and evaluate three published nutritional quality indices or healthy food indicators; establish a methodology that integrates quality/health indicators within the nLCAs; and validate a tool that can monitor the sustainability of the Spanish population’s diet through these nLCAs. With this, Fresán Salvo could consolidate Spain’s role as a leading country in this regard and would favour the development of tools to promote dietary sustainability in our country.

Finally, Adrián González Guzmán will carry out his research in the department of agronomy of the Etsiam center of the University of Cordoba, where he completed his doctorate. With a degree in Biology and a master’s degree in Environment and Natural Resources, both from the University of Santiago de Compostela, González Guzmán specialises in soil science.

Its project consists of providing crops with the necessary nutrients through the formulation of organomineral substrates inoculated from organic and inorganic waste, the reduction and capture of greenhouse gases from slurry and the improvement of soil fertility efficiency. In addition, its ultimate goal is to create formulation software to automate the process of combining residues according to crop demands, soil properties, and available filter materials.

Of course, we would like to thank all the participants in this edition for the quality of the projects presented. On this path, an Orientation Committee has helped us in an initial selection process and a Pre-selection Committee has been in charge of evaluating the selected proposals. Their work has allowed the jury, made up of seven experts, to select the projects of Adrián González Guzmán, Marta Albo Puigserver and Ujué Fresán Salvo, whom we will accompany for the next two years.

The Daniel Carasso Fellowship is endowed with 160,000 euros: 120,000 will be used to cover the beneficiary’s remuneration for a period of 24 months and 40,000 as aid for research activities. In addition to supporting scientific careers, the ultimate goal of the program is to build a community of researchers who are committed to joining their efforts to guide the transition to sustainable food systems. In this way, the three winners of this second edition join Raquel Ajates and Daniel Gaitán, awarded in the first edition of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship in 2021.