Documentation over for Midterm Review of the Graduate School WIAS

Transcription

1 Documentation over for Midterm Review of the Graduate School WIAS October 2012

2

3 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Contents Contents Contents... 3 Preface... 5 How to read the documentation... 7 Part A. Graduate School Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS) Annex A List of WIAS Staff Members Annex B List of courses and seminars Part B. Documentation of the Chair Groups Animal Breeding and Genetics (ABG) Adaptation Physiology (ADP) Animal Nutrition (ANU) Animal Production Systems (APS) Aquaculture and Fisheries (AFI) Behavioural Ecology (BHE) Cell Biology and Immunology (CBI) Experimental Zoology (EZO) Host Microbe Interactomics (HMI) Human and Animal Physiology (HAP) Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology (QVE) List of Abbreviations

4

5 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Preface Preface In the Dutch national research evaluation system, all publicly funded research is evaluated by a peer review once every six years. The outlines for this evaluation are provided by the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP) developed by VSNU/KNAW/ECOS (2009), adapted for Wageningen University (2009). Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS) has been evaluated by an international peer review panel according to the SEP protocol in June The results of the evaluation are intended to assist the research organisation, the management of the research units and the individual researchers to improve future research, research management and policy, the scientific quality of their research and internal and external collaborations. The graduate school generates a self-evaluation report once every three years, one in preparation of the external review, and one three years later as a mid-term review. The present report provides a midterm review for WIAS for The next external peer review of the graduate school WIAS will take place in In this midterm evaluation the Chairs and the management of the graduate school evaluate their own performance in relation to the previous peer review. The groups have been asked to report their reaction to the recommendation of the peer review panel. In addition, they have been asked to report the main developments over this period. In the first part of the report, issues are addressed relating to the research and PhD programmes at the level of the graduate school (Part A). In the second part (Part B) results of the individual Chairs groups are given. This self-evaluation report will be discussed within the graduate school and qualified by the Midterm Review Committee, consisting of members of the International Advisory Board (IAB) complemented with 4 renown scientist, that forms a well-balanced committee to review and advice all Chair groups. Finally, the self-evaluation report and the conclusions and recommendations of the IAB will be discussed with chair groups and the Executive Board of Wageningen University. The midterm review will be used to strengthen our international research position and to improve the training and research environment for our PhD students, staff and clients. 5

6

7 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 How to read the documentation How to read the documentation The Organization Wageningen University and Research Centre Wageningen University and Research Centre (Wageningen UR) is a collaboration of three organizations, led by one Executive Board: Wageningen University the university of professional education Van Hall Larenstein DLO (specialized research institutes for strategic and applied research) The mission of Wageningen UR is to explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life. Both research and education are focused around this mission. Wageningen UR employs 6,500 staff members and hosts around 10,000 students (BSc and MSc) and 1,800 PhD students. Animal Sciences Group The science group associated with WIAS is the Animal Sciences Group (ASG). The ASG consists of Wageningen UR Livestock Research, Central Veterinary Institute (CVI), both located in Lelystad, and the Department of Animal Sciences as indicated in Figure 2. Both Wageningen UR Livestock Research and the Central Veterinary Institute are part of the contract research organisation DLO, of Wageningen University and Research Centre (Wageningen UR). The Department of Animal Sciences includes 11 chair groups of Wageningen University, which cooperate intensively with the other two units of the ASG. Another important partner is the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies (IMARES) of Wageningen UR. This DLO institute is not part of ASG. However it has a strong link with ASG since it is led by the same board. Collaborative structures, called centres, have been created to facilitate cooperation between university groups and corresponding research groups from the contract research organisations of Wageningen UR. 7

8 How to read the documentation WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Figure 2. Organisation of the Animal Sciences Group (ASG) Wageningen University Within Wageningen University a matrix is created where the lines of accountability converge to the Executive Board. On the vertical axes of the matrix are the so-called Sciences Groups; on the horizontal axes are the Educational Institute and the Graduate Schools. The figure shows this matrix: Figure 1. Organisation of Wageningen University (WU) The basic unit is the chair group, led by a full professor, who is appointed chair holder. Chair holders operate within the Sciences Groups and interact with the management of the Science groups with regard to human resource management, financial management and facilities. They interact with the Graduate School with regard to the focus, direction and quality of their fundamental and strategic research and PhD program. Hence, the chair groups are at the crossroads of the axes, meaning that chair holders develop a strategy and policy towards their chair in dialogue with both science group and graduate school. The chair holder interacts with the programme committee of the Educational Institute on teaching commitment. 8

9 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 How to read the documentation The Science Groups are responsible for facilities, human resource management and financial management. The head of the science group is the director general, who reports to the Executive Board of Wageningen UR. The Educational institute is responsible for all BSc and MSc educational programs. The six Wageningen Graduate Schools are responsible for research coordination, research quality and PhD education. The Executive Board is responsible for the overall management of Wageningen UR. The Board is accountable to a Supervisory Board, appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. The Rector Magnificus is vice-president of the Executive Board. He holds responsibility for education, student affairs and research. Types of PhD Candidates Employed PhD candidates: Temporary employee of Wageningen University Staff PhD candidates: Employee of Wageningen University who is given the opportunity to conduct PhD research Sandwich PhD candidates: Fellowship candidate whose research is primarily conducted at the home institute of the candidates country of residence/origin Guest PhD candidates: Fellowship candidate whose research is primarily conducted at Wageningen University External PhD candidates: Candidate who is not employed by Wageningen University who conducts research at and institute other than Wageningen University and whose only affiliation with Wageningen is via the supervisor Measuring Research Input and Productivity Research input is measured in fte (full time equivalent) research time for tenured and non-tenured staff. PhD research input was measured until 2008 as research time spent at Wageningen University. Since 2009 PhD research input is the same for every candidate and counted for as 0.75 for a maximum of 4 years. Bibliometric analyses (Wageningen UR Library, 2012) Introduction The biliometric analyses are based on a quantitative analysis of scientific articles published in journals and serials covered by the Web of Science (WoS). Web of Science is the Web version of the Science Citation Index (SCI), the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts & Humanitiess Citation Index (A&HCI) of Thomson Reuters Scientific, the former Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia. Thomson Reuters Scientific produces two analytical databases based on data derived from SCI, SSCI and A&HCI. These are the Journal Citation Reports, generating the journal Impact Factors (IF) and the database Essential Science Indicators (ESI) which provides the world average number of citations of publications for 22 different research fields. These world averages are the so-called baselines. The percentile thresholds for the top 10% and top 1% of Citation Impact of papers are also presented in ESI. The combination of available citations data from Web of Science and the baseline data from ESI make these databases unique and de facto the standard for advanced bibliometric analysis. 9

10 How to read the documentation WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Methodology In this analysis the citation impact of publications of the staff of the Chair groups of the department of Animal Sciences was investigated. Articles, reviews, notes and letters were included in this analysis, because these publication types are most likely to report on substantial research results that have been subjected to peer review. Citations and self citations The number of citations of each publication was harvested from Web of Science in September No corrections for self-citations have been made. There are three reasons for not correcting for selfcitations. Firstly, the baselines for world average citations (provided by Thomson Reuters Scientific) that were used are not corrected for self-citations. In the second place, it has been demonstrated that self-citations are an inevitable part of the research process and have no influence on the outcome of bibliometric indicators at the department or institute level (Glänzel et al., 2006). Thirdly, the self-citation patterns are constant within disciplines (Snyder & Bonzi, 1998). Recently, Van Raan (2008) has shown that self-citations have an increasing effect on external citations and thereby an accumulating effect on the total number of citations for research groups. Benchmarking The database Essential Science Indicators (ESI) provides the world average number of citations and percentile thresholds of citedness of publications for 22 different research fields. These baselines allow us to benchmark the citation results of the publications against the world average citations for each research field. The publications are therefore assigned to one of the research fields from the Essential Science Indicators on the basis of the journal in which the article was published. The journal lists are publically available at For publications published in the set of multidisciplinary journals, such as Nature, Science, PNAS etc., the assignment to a research field was done for each publication individually on the basis of the research group that published the article and the title of the article itself. In this way for each publication of a given age, the world average number of citations and the top 10% and top 1% most cited publications thresholds in their research field can be established. Relative Impact The relative impact (RI) is the common measure that is used as a proxy for the quality of a publication. The number of citations provides a measure for the impact of the publication to which these citations refer. However, the number of citations to a publication varies considerably across different research fields. For this reason the impact of a publication is normalized by dividing the number of citations to a publication by the world average number of citations for the research field to which the publication belongs. Recently there have been discussions how the impact of aggregations of publications (e.g. by author, research group or institute) should be calculated (Opthof & Leydesdorff, 2010, Van Raan et al. 2010, Waltman et al. 2011, Leydesdorff et al. 2011). There is now consensus that the Crown indicator should be replaced by the MNCS indicator. In this study the MNCS indicator is referred to as RI for higher aggregation levels and is calculated according to this method (van Veller et al., 2010). The Relative Impact (RI) for a series of publications is calculated as follows: with C i = Number of citations to publication i N = Total number of publications in series that is analyzed Wavg i = World average number of citations for publication i (determined by research field for the journal in which publication i is included and the publication year of publication i) 10

11 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 How to read the documentation In this bibliometric analysis the measure for the relative impact is given as a decimal number that shows the relation of the measure to the world average (which is set to the value of 1). For example, a Relative Impact of 0.9 for a particular series of publications from a certain research group means that the research group s publications are cited 10% below the world average of all publications of the same age that are produced in the same research field. Alternatively, in case of Relative Impact of 1.2 the research group s publications are cited 20% above world average. Based upon the value of RI, research groups can be divided into groups with low, average and high impact (Van Raan, 2004). At the level of universities, institutes or graduate schools the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden uses for the following criteria for the classification for their RI: RI 0.5 : far below world average impact 0.5 < RI 0.8 : below world average impact 0.8 < RI 1.2 : world average impact 1.2 < RI 1.5 : high average impact RI > 1.5 : very high average impact At the lower aggregation level, e.g. for business units, for which the volume of peer reviewed publications is in the order of publications per year the following classes for RI are distinguished (Van Raan, 2004): RI 0.8 : below world average impact 0.8 < RI 1.2 : world average impact 1.2 < RI 2.0 : above world average impact 2.0 < RI 3.0 : very good average impact RI > 3.0 : excellent average impact Top 10% most cited papers Comparing the number of citations per publication with the percentile thresholds of the top 10% (T10) most cited publications of the same age in the same research field yields the absolute number of publications meeting this criterion. In addition to the absolute number of highly cited publications, it is more meaningful to look at the number of highly cited publications as a percentage of total publications produced. The percentage of highly cited publications is a good indicator to distinguish excellent research groups from the best research groups (Tijssen et al., 2002) Table 1 Explanation of all indicators used in this report Indicator Meaning N Total number of publications in a series that is analyzed. C Total number of citations to the N publications. Wavg Sum of the world averages of baselines of citations. CPP Number of citations per publication. CI Citation Impact or 'crown indicator' of CWTS which is the field normalized citation score. This indicator corresponds to the number of citations to publications from a unit during the analyzed time span, compared to the total number of world average of citations to similar publications (of the same age and within the same research fields as for the group s publications). RI Relative Impact or the item oriented field normalized citation score. This indicator corresponds to the number of citations to publications from a unit during the analyzed time span, compared to the world average of citations to similar publications (of the same age and within the same research fields as for the group s publications). The term "item oriented" indicates that the normalization of the citation values is done on an individual article level after which the average over all publications gives the score of RI. 11

12 How to read the documentation WIAS Midterm Review 2012 %T10(T10) %T1(T1) %NC (NC) Percentage of the 10% most cited papers compared to total number of publications (Total number of publications within the top 10% best cited publications in their field). Percentage of the 1% most cited papers compared to total number of publications (Total number of publications within the top 1% best cited publications in their field). Percentage of non-cited publications compared to the total number publications (Total number of non-cited publications). References Glänzel, W., K. Debackere, B. Thijs and A. Schubert (2006). A concise review on the role of author self-citations in information science, bibliometrics and science policy. Scientometrics 67(2): Leydesdorff, L., L. Bornmann, R. Mutz and T. Opthof (2011). Turning the tables on citation analysis one more time: Principles for comparing sets of documents. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62(7): Opthof, T. and L. Leydesdorff (2010). Caveats for the journal and field normalizations in the CWTS ("Leiden") evaluations of research performance. Journal of Informetrics 4(3): Snyder, H. and S. Bonzi (1998). Patterns of self-citation across disciplines ( ). Journal of Information Science 24(6): Tenopir, C. (2004). Online scholarly journals: How many? Library Journal 129(2): 32. Tijssen, R. J. W., M. S. Visser and T. N. van Leeuwen (2002). Benchmarking international scientific excellence: Are highly cited research papers an appropriate frame of reference? Scientometrics 54(3): Van Eck, N. J. & L. Waltman (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2): Van Raan, A. F. J. (2004). Measuring Science. Capita Selecta of Current Main Issues. Handbook of Quantitative Science and Technology Research : The use of Publication and Patent Statistics in Studies of S&T Systems. H. F. Moed, W. Glänzel and U. Schmoch. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers: Van Raan, A. F. J. (2008). Self-citation as an impact-reinforcing mechanism in the science system. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59(10): Van Raan, A. F. J., T. N. van Leeuwen, M. S. Visser and N. J. van Eck (2010). Rivals for the crown: Reply to Opthof and Leydesdorff. Journal of Informetrics 4(3): Van Veller, M. G. P., W. Gerritsma, P. L. van der Togt, C. D. Leon & C. M. van Zeist (2010). Bibliometric analyses on repository contents for the evaluation of research at Wageningen UR. In: A. Katsirikou and C. H. Skiadas eds. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries: Theory and Applications. p Waltman, L., N. J. van Eck, T. N. van Leeuwen, M. S. Visser and A. F. J. van Raan (2011). Towards a new crown indicator: Some theoretical considerations. Journal of Informetrics 5(1):

13 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 How to read the documentation Part A. Graduate School 13

14

15 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS) 1 Research programme and Reflection The Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS) was established May 25, It is a graduate school of Wageningen University, involved in activities in animal sciences and related fields, engaged in fundamental and strategic research, and providing training for young researchers. WIAS was first accredited by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) in 1995, and re-accredited in 2000, 2005 and most recently in Our mission is: Improving our understanding of animals and their various roles for mankind through fundamental and strategic research and training of early stage researchers The core of WIAS research encompasses the life science fields of zoology, genetics, immunology, epidemiology, physiology, nutrition and ecology. It offers an integrated and comprehensive approach of research on societally relevant animals and animals which are relevant for science itself. Since 2010 Chair groups are combined into larger managerial entities, called clusters, to stimulate cross disciplinary talk and strategic collaboration: Cluster 1. Animal Biology, Nutrition and Health, which combines the Chair groups of Cell Biology and Immunology (CBI), Human and Animal Physiology (HAP), Experimental Zoology (EZO), and Animal Nutrition (ANU). Cluster 2. Epidemiology, Genomics and Interactomics, which combines the Chair groups of Host- Microbe Interactomics (HMI), Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology (QVE), and Animal Breeding and Genetics (ABG). Cluster 3. Adaptive Animals and Systems, which combines the Chair groups of Animal Production Systems (APS), Aquaculture and Fisheries (AFI), Adaptation Physiology (ADP), and Behavioural Ecology (BHE). WIAS used to work with the research themes Animal health and welfare, Healthy and safe products and Sustainable systems. However, since there was a lot of overlap between the research themes and clusters, WIAS decided to adopt the grouping of research and Chair groups into clusters. In addition, clusters are in the process of developing joint research strategies. Key focus points of WIAS are PhD training, the quality of the PhD programme and talent development: PhD training At Wageningen University the education programme works with so-called T-shaped skills : a combination of training broad personal skills and in-depth scientific knowledge, both of which are essential for a PhD candidate to become an independent, professional scientist with a high academic level. A Training and Supervision Plan (TSP) describes the education timeline of the candidate and represents a personal training programme based on each candidate s individual needs. Quality The quality of the PhD education is monitored and guaranteed by a plan-do-check-revisit cycle. Each PhD candidate submits a research proposal that is reviewed by external (mainly international) peers. In this way WIAS can guarantee the scientific quality of the PhD research within WIAS and safeguard the feasibility of the PhD projects. In order to safeguard he quality of supervision, also supervisors must meet certain criteria to become a WIAS staff member. Every two years a Supervision Survey is held amongst the PhD candidates to check if they are satisfied with the quality and quantity of their supervision. The outcome of this survey is analysed and discussed with the Chair holders and eventually, actions are requested. 15

16 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Talent development This is a strong focus point of WIAS. We have two talent-programmes: Talents & Topics and the WIAS Graduate Programme. Talents & Topics is meant to train young ambitious scientists to obtain the skills and competences needed by a research leader: writing projects for granting, establishing focus in their research and profiling themselves with a research theme while managing a research group. On top of this, in 2012 WIAS received a prestigious grant from NWO to facilitate and stimulate talented MSc students to become excellent researchers. With this grant we can give excellent MSc students the opportunity to write their own PhD proposal, select a supervisor/chair group from within WIAS and perform the PhD study in the area and topic of their interest. Reflection on Peer Review Keep the interface between WIAS and the Animal Sciences Group (ASG) under scrutiny to prevent misalignment should the persons involved change. To ensure alignment the WIAS Scientific Director is member of the ASG Management Team. In reverse the ASG directors are leading the monthly Professor Meeting of the Department of Animal Sciences. 2 Combine the Chair groups into larger managerial entities whilst retaining the Chairs and some clustering into subject areas. Since 2010 the Chair groups are part of different clusters to stimulate cross disciplinary talk and strategic collaboration. The three clusters are Animal Biology, Nutrition and Health, Epidemiology, Genomics and Interactomics and Adaptive Animals and System. 3 University should provide a budget to WIAS to improve its profiling. WIAS and the associated Chair groups use newsletters, websites and brochures to increase visibility nationally and internationally. In 2010 the Lentink team of several members of the EZO Chair group and WU biology students that won the Academic Year Prize in 2010, resulting in public involvement in flight research. More than 600 people made, after special training, field observations with high-speed camera. This project received and still receives a great amount of media attention. This further improved the visibility of WIAS research. Social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn, are new ways to create more visibility and is used by the WIAS Associated PhD Students (WAPS). At the end of 2011 WIAS started again with the 2-monthly newsletters after a few years of 6-monthly newsletters. WIAS will continue to improve its visibility and explore new media to improve its profiling. 4 WIAS should develop a cross-chair group strategy and plan to increase NWO and EU funds in an integrated and comprehensive fashion. An important stimulant is the WIAS Talents & Topics programme in which young researchers are stimulated to apply for a grant. In 2012 this programme is further continued together with the other graduate schools and a pilot will start in September with a VENI Talents & Topics to increase NWO funds. 5 Commercial exploitation of research through avenues such as their own patents and joint commercial ventures. Review best practice in knowledge exchange at other Dutch Universities and adopt the approach that suits best. We believe that WIAS is quite strong in acquiring externally funded research, both from Science funding agencies such as NWO, and from semi-public organisations and industry. The annual budget of the department of Animal Science through contract funding is around M 11. The funding of research by contract funding has increased in the last three years and increased on average by almost 25% compared to (55.3% of total research funding in compared to 42.6% in ). 16

17 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS 6 Stimulate even greater collaboration, exchange of staff and expertise with the DLO. The greatest benefit can be realised by the amalgamation of the groups onto a single site if that could be achieved. Centers have been created to formalize collaboration between DLO and WU. There are joint centers for Animal Breeding and Genetics (Animal Breeding and Genetics Centre, ABGC), and Animal Nutrition (Centre for Animal Nutrition, CAN) which have been positively evaluated by an international committee, as part of the 2008 review of the contract research organization of the Animal Sciences Group. The Centre for Animal Welfare and Adaptation (WACA) and the Centre for Aquaculture (Wageningen Aquaculture) have recently started their activities. A centre for Animal Infectious Diseases is under development. A special position is taken by the Centre for Agroecology and Systems Analysis (WaCASA) which also started recently. Different than the other centres, it does not bridge the DLO-University barrier but bridges different departments within the University. WaCASA links APS with the Chair groups Plant Production Systems and Organic Farming Systems (both from the Department of Plant Sciences). In addition, WU staff members moved to the Wageningen University Campus at the end of 2011, where some of our DLO partners are already located. Wageningen Livestock Research will also move from Lelystad to Wageningen in the nearby future. 7 Extend research beyond classical livestock species like companion animals and the development of animal models for humans. This is an important topic for WIAS and the last few year progress was made. Besides research in horses (eczema, osteochondrosis and genetic defects) and in companion animals (behaviour of dogs in relation to nutrition, obesity by dogs and cats) the sciences of animals are now broadened to squid, seahorses, corals, zebrafish and birds such as the Great Tit. The discipline of ecology receives growing attention within WIAS. At the end of 2011 the Chair group Behavioural Ecology started and in April 2012 Marcel Visser was appointed as Professor on Ecological genetics. A Wageningen University broad committee appointed by the Rector Magnificus prepares the profile for a new Chair in Marine Systems Ecology who will also be part of WIAS. 8 There should be a research strategy for ASG as whole, but any joint strategy should reflect difference in the goals and aspirations of the university and DLO staff. This has been addressed in our answer on recommendation 6. Formation of centers will improve the development of a joint research strategy and stimulates synergy between ASG and DLO by making fundamental and strategic funds available for PhD research. The centers also provide opportunities for commercial exploitation, and are the places to separate the specific goals of both DLO and University in a comprehensive manner. 9 Continue financial support for activities such as Talents and Topics. In 2008 WIAS received a contribution from Wageningen University for Talents & Topics (T&T), but since 2012 the groups of the participating young researchers need to pay for the full programme. In order to reduce costs and to recruit enough participants Talents & Topics will be organised together with all other graduate schools. WIAS takes it as a stand that the Wageningen Graduate Schools (WGS) T&T programme safeguards the learning goals and philosophy of the WIAS T&T. 10 The level of resource provision for new Chairs should be revised. New Chairs receive a starting budget from the rector magnificus and WIAS supports new Chairs by financing a full PhD position. 17

18 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review More comprehensive succession planning to reduce risk of losing key individuals in smaller groups. The university has implemented a tenure track system. Top scientific talent is attracted to start as assistant/associate professor and end as Professor holding a personal chair within maximally twelve years after entering the programme, obviously provided that the requirements are met. 12 There should be a discussion of performance indicators resulting out of various bibliometric assessments practised in the science system as measures of relevance. This is an on-going discussion within the university and WIAS will actively participate in this discussion. Recently, a Canadian study on the bibliometric assessment of Canadian and worldwide aquaculture research was submitted to the Wageningen assessment specialists, in an attempt to launch a benchmarking comparison and discussion of methods. 13 Consider ways to incorporate measures of the wider impact of WIAS research in future reports. A new element in the self-evaluations is societal relevance where Chairs can describe what the impact of their research has been on society. The format for this societal relevance part has been created by the 6 graduate schools. 14 Keep record of the number of job applications and job interviews held. Human Resource Management keeps track on the number of job applications and reports this back to WIAS. 15 The Introduction and Discussion to the Wageningen PhD thesis should be substantial independent pieces of work that can be assessed as the student s own. Guidelines for the thesis are defined by the Academic Board of Wageningen University. According to these guidelines, the General Introduction and General Discussion should not be published before as a separate paper and must identify the coherence of the different scientific parts, and show the maturity of the PhD candidate in his/her academic reflection. Both chapters are by default written as a single-authored chapter by the student. 16 The supervisory load needs to be monitored and the availability of staff to act as daily supervisors should be determined before any further expansion in PhD numbers. In October 2010 a supervision survey was held. 90% of the PhD candidates indicated that they were satisfied with the level of organization and quality of their supervision. The mean number of weekly contact hours with their supervisor was The supervisory load does not seem to be a problem now, but to ensure that the quality of supervision is guaranteed this supervision survey will be repeated on a regular basis and used as an essential instrument in our quality monitoring by plan-do-check-update cycle. 17 Consider broadening the Science meets Society event to include all animal science research within the University. This workshop was not repeated after However WIAS as developed other initiatives for science to meet society. A good example is the project of the Lentink team of several members of the EZO Chair group and WU biology students that won the Academic Year Prize in 2010, resulting in public involvement in flight research. More than 600 people made, after special training, field observations with high-speed camera. This project received and still receives a great amount of media attention. 18

19 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS Goals from Peer Review Continue with the Talents and Topics and other talent-driven workshops, e.g. Writing winning grant proposals. We continued this programme very successfully. Writing winning grant proposals has become a part of the Talents and Topics programme and is also accessible through the Wageningen Graduate Schools (WGS) courses for all PhD candidates. 19 Support and stimulate the existing and new collaborative centers within the Animal Sciences Group to stimulate joint agenda setting and increase critical mass and visibility. WIAS supported the formation of new centers and stimulates increasing critical mass. 20 Support our European ambitions and visibility by organising joint PhD courses and stimulate exchange of PhD students with other strong partners. The long-standing collaborations with the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA; France) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI; Kenya) were formalized and extended in Furthermore, inter-graduate school collaboration has been developed with NOVA (Scandinavia) and ABIES (Paris, France) with the aim to jointly organize in-depth courses. The latter collaboration was recently intensified by the formation of the European Graduate School in Animal Breeding and Genomics (EGS-ABG), which was recognized by the EU as an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorates Programme. Other position and communication changes in the past three years 21 Prof. Bas Kemp has been the Scientific Director of WIAS from January 2008 until January He was succeeded by Prof. Johan Verreth. 22 A new Chair group has been established in 2011 named Behavioural Ecology and in December 2011 Prof. Marc Naguib started as Chair holder. He is originally from Germany and has worked since 2008 as senior researcher at the Department of Animal Ecology of the NIOO. To help build up this new group WIAS will sponsor one full PhD position. 23 In 2011 is was decided that the relevant DLO institutes should have a representative in the WIAS board. Therefore Tjeerd Kimman from CVI took place in the WIAS Board. Paul Vriesekoop from Wageningen Livestock Research and Adriaan Rijnsdorp from IMARES were already Board members. The chairman of the Education Committee, represented by Leo Nagelkerke, will be present at the Board meetings. 24 In December 2011 WIAS started with a two-monthly newsletter. 2 Research input The number and fte of tenured staff has increased in the last three years. This is partly a result of the expansion of the relatively new group (Host-Microbe Interactomics) and the new Chair group Behavioural Ecology. On the other hand the number of PhD candidates has increased as well. However the number of PhD candidates has increased more than the number of tenured staff and thus the workload per supervisor increased. Yet the quality of supervision has not been affected as the supervision survey showed. The quality of supervision has been monitored and will be continued to ensure a high quality level and supervision. 19

20 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Table 1: Research input: number of research staff and PhD candidates (incl fte research i (# 1 /fte 2 ) Average Average # fte # fte # fte # fte # fte Tenured staff Non-tenured staff PhD candidates Total number of staff and PhD candidates 2 Available research time in fte. 3 all PhD categories, except external PhDs The number of PhD candidates increased last three years and the majority is financed by contract funding. This has been stimulated by the university in the so called IP/OP programmes and the Top Sector policy ( topsectorenbeleid ). IP/OP programmes acquire funds from businesses and from strategic funds from the six graduate schools of Wageningen University. Top Sectors are created by the government to boost the competitive power of the Dutch economy and Wageningen University contributes to the realization of the innovation contracts in these top sectors. Acquiring funds from NWO/KNAW/ERC has increased by almost 30%. Table 2: Funding research staff and PhD 1,2 candidates in fte Average Average University NWO/KNAW/ERC Contracts Total: Available research time in fte. 2 all PhD categories, except external PhDs There are no major changes in share of funding. There are however large differences between Chair groups. The Chair groups Animal Nutrition, Aquaculture and Fisheries and Human and Animal Physiology have substantially increased their share of funding while the Chair groups Adaptation Physiology and Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology decreased their relative share over the last three years. Table 3: Share of total funding in % Average Average Chair group Adaptation Physiology Animal Breeding and Genetics Animal Nutrition Animal Production Systems Aquaculture and Fisheries Cell Biology and Immunology Experimental Zoology Farm Technology (only WIAS input) Host-Microbe Interactomics Human and Animal Physiology Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology

21 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS 3 Research environment and embedding WIAS staff members compete at the highest international levels of their respective areas of research. All core researchers are involved in supervision of MSc students and PhD candidates. In addition, they all contribute to BSc, MSc and PhD education. To ensure continuously high quality in research, education, and supervision, WIAS periodically assesses its tenured staff, using seven criteria: Have a PhD degree; Have published at least 13 articles in refereed journals during the past five years, where a first authorship counts as two publications; Have acted once as promoter or co-promoter of a PhD student at least once during the past five years; Have attracted at least one externally-funded PhD or postdoc project during the past five years; Have achieved at least an average citation score in the relevant discipline (compared with colleagues in a similar position); Have made a substantial contribution to PhD courses and seminars during the past five years (not necessarily WIAS courses); Have been recognised (internationally) for scientific achievement (honorary doctorates, scientific awards, membership on editorial boards, etc). To be admitted to WIAS, staff must meet at least 4 of the 7 criteria. Senior staff should meet at least 6 criteria. Conditional admittance (if three criteria are met) is for a maximum of three years. Table 4. Admission of WIAS staff Wageningen University Reference year Senior 70% 75% 78% 62% Admitted 23% 25% 22% 35% Conditionally admitted 7% 0% 0% 3% Total number of staff Research capacity 20.5 fte 18.2 fte 18.2 fte 27.4 fte The number of WIAS staff of Wageningen University has increased by 46% with respect to New, young researchers have become WIAS staff member recently and that explains the relative difference in type of staff member compared to previous reference years. Staff members from DLO institutes have increased by almost 40% compared to In this way WIAS can also guarantee a high level of supervision of PhD candidates who perform their research at these institutes. Table 5. Admission of WIAS staff DLO institutes 1 Reference year Senior 53% 47% 25% 24% Admitted 42% 47% 54% 61% Conditionally admitted 5% 6% 8% 15% Total number of staff Livestock Research, Central Veterinary Institute, IMARES 21

22 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Internal collaboration WIAS also collaborates with their counterparts at the DLO Institutes and IMARES in a number of expertise centres where Chairs of the Department of Animal Sciences join forces to increase critical mass and to realize effective collaboration (see also, Appendix 1). There are joint centres for Animal Breeding and Genetics (Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre, ABGC), and Animal Nutrition (Centre for Animal Nutrition, CAN), which have been positively evaluated by an international committee, as part of the 2008 review of the contract research organization (DLO) of the Animal Sciences Group. The Centre for Animal Welfare and Adaptation (WACA) and the Centre for Aquaculture (Wageningen Aquaculture) have recently started their activities. A centre for Animal Infectious Diseases is under development. A special position is taken by the Centre for Agroecology and Systems Analysis (WaCASA) which also started recently. Different than the other centres, it does not bridge the DLO- University barrier but bridges different departments within the University. WaCASA links APS with the Chair groups Plant Production Systems and Organic Farming Systems (both from the Department of Plant Sciences). Around 10% of PhD projects are collaborations between WIAS Chair groups. An example is the collaborative programme between the Animal Breeding and Genetics group and the Adaptation Physiology group on social interactions in group-housed animals, financed by STW/NWO. Another collaborative programme was realized between the Animal Production Systems group and the Animal Nutrition group on greenhouse-gas emissions from livestock systems, financed by the livestock industry and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. External collaboration Long-standing collaborations exists with the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA; France) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI; Kenya). Both were formalized and extended in Furthermore, inter-graduate school collaboration has been developed between WIAS on one hand and NOVA (Scandinavia) and ABIES (Paris, France) on the other hand with the aim to jointly organize in-depth courses. The latter collaboration was recently intensified by the formation of the European Graduate School in Animal Breeding and Genomics (EGS-ABG), which was recognized by the EU as an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorates Programme. The Scientific Training in Antimicrobial Research Strategies (STARS)-project, led by the Host-Microbe Interactomics group, is another example of a recent success by WIAS to extend international collaboration in PhD research and training. This is an Initial Training Network (ITN) for early-stage researchers who want to undertake post-graduate training in antimicrobial research and development. The STARS-project is funded under the Marie Curie Actions of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union. Each Chair group also maintains contacts with national and international research groups to sustain knowledge in their respective research areas and to have access to new insights and techniques. In the coming 5 years, these partnerships will be expanded, and we will engage in more European Graduate School activities. WIAS also participates in two Interdisciplinary Research and Education Fund (INREF) projects. INREF is development oriented and most of the research is conducted by Sandwich PhD candidates working in groups on important topics concerning different developing countries. The program RESCOPAR is together with the Graduate Schools WASS, PE&RC and WIMEK and the new program BESTTUNA with WASS and WIMEK. 22

23 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS 4 Output Academic publications have increased these last 3 years (table 6). Especially the number of refereed articles have increased. The high number of conference papers in 2010 is explained by a larger number of conferences that year. The number of PhD theses is relatively constant, but is expected to increase since the number of PhD candidates have increased. Table 6: Total research output per category Average Average Academic Publications Refereed articles Non-refereed articles Books Refereed book chapters Non-refereed book chapters PhD theses Conference papers Total Publications Professional publications Publications general public Other research output Total There is a positive trend in the productivity these last three years. Especially the number of refereed articles and the total academic publications per fte have increased (table 7). Table 7: Productivity per fte tenured staff Average Average Refereed articles Refereed book chapters n/a Total academic publications PhD theses Training, Supervision and Quality WIAS PhD education programme A PhD study at Wageningen University usually lasts 4 years: years is spent on the research project leading to the PhD thesis and years (min. 30 ECTS) on completing the tailor-made education and training programme. The education programme developed so-called T-shaped skills : a combination of broad personal skills and in-depth scientific knowledge, both of which are essential for a PhD candidate to become an independent, professional animal scientist with a high academic level. A WIAS PhD candidate will: Perform efficiently and effectively as a PhD candidate during the four-year period; Be aware of the position of a scientist and of relevant developments in science and society; Have up-to-date knowledge of the developments in the relevant scientific area; Be able to communicate with a broad audience, establish a scientific network, and become aware of stakeholders and funding institutions; and Be able to manage a (project)group. 23

24 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review 2012 A Training and Supervision Plan (TSP) describes the education timeline of the candidate and represents a personal training programme based on each candidate s individual needs and must be submitted within 6 months after starting the PhD to the Chairman of the Education Committee. Upon fulfilling the requirements for the TSP, a PhD candidate is awarded an education certificate, which is included in the PhD thesis. Table 8 shows the number of graduations with and without certificate. In % more students graduated with certificate in comparison to the period and only 16% graduates defended their thesis without education certificate. The majority of the latter group are external PhD candidates who had no formal relation with Wageningen University in the course of their study besides the admission to the PhD programme and the defence. Table 8. Number of PhD graduations with and without WIAS Education Certificate Average Average with Certificate without Certificate WIAS defines 4 categories in the TSP: The Basic Package (min. 3 ECTS) includes an Introduction course (competence training and assessment) and the Ethics and Philosophy in Life Sciences course, which are mandatory for all WIAS PhD students. If a candidate has already acquired these competences, i.e. in a previous job, a waiver can be obtained. Scientific Exposure (min. 8 ECTS) includes (international) conferences, seminars, workshops, and presentations (oral and poster) given by the PhD candidate. In-depth studies (min. 6 ECTS) includes disciplinary and interdisciplinary courses at the PhD level and participation in discussion groups. Professional skills support courses (min. 3 ECTS) includes courses that support development of professional skills, such as a scientific writing course and an MSc supervision course. Table 7. Amount of courses and seminars offered (ECTS credits, 1 ECTS = 28 hours, and in days) Average Average credits credits credits credits credits Courses Seminars On average the total amount of credits for WIAS courses and seminars slightly improved. The trend over the last three years indicates that more courses were organised, opposite to seminars. PhD candidates can also receive education credits by, for example, writing their PhD project proposal, organising seminars and courses, being a member of boards and committees, lecturing, supervising MSc theses. Table 10. Inflow of PhD candidates Inflow PhD candidates Average Average Employed Guest and Sandwich External Total

25 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS WIAS has a high PhD completion rate (93%) and a drop-out rate of 7%. The average time to graduation is 4.6 years, including the 3-6 months between submission of the PhD thesis and the public defence (Table 8). The inflow of PhD students has increased and almost doubled in ten years time. Table 11. Inflow of PhD candidates, graduation time and completion rates Cohort Inflow of PhD candidates 1 Stopped ( ) number / % Finished ( ) number / % Average duration (years) ( ) Median 2 duration (years) ( ) On going ( ) number / % / 0% 22 / 92% / 8% / 5% 20 / 95% / 0% / 9% 20 / 91% / 0% /5% 18 / 90% / 5% / 13% 12 / 80% / 7% / 14% 15 / 72% / 14% / 10% 12 / 60% / 30% / 9% 8 / 24% / 67% / 3% 0 / 0% / 97% / 3% 0 / 0% / 97% / 4% 0 / 0% / 96% / 0% 0 / 0% / 100% 1 Excluding external PhD candidates (not employed by Wageningen University, and conducting their research at an institute other than Wageningen University) 2 The median duration is defined as the time needed for 50% of an inflow cohort to graduate Talent development Talent development is a strong focus point of WIAS. We want to facilitate and stimulate talented MSc students to become excellent researchers leading eventually to a Tenure Track position. To reach this goal, WIAS recently (August 2012) received a grant of k 800 from NWO to give excellent MSc students the opportunity to perform a PhD in the area and topic of their interest. The T&T programme is then for excellent PhD candidates or post-docs to receive a post-doc or a Tenure Track position. Talents and Topics In 2008 the Talents and Topics (T&T) programme was developed by the former WIAS director aimed at training young ambitious scientists to obtain the skills and competences needed by a research leader: writing projects for granting, establishing focus in their research and profiling themselves with a research theme while managing a research group. A second aim was to establish more cooperation within the Animal Sciences Group (ASG). In the T&T programme of WIAS young scientists from the chair groups of the Animal Science Department and from the Central Veterinary Institute, IMARES and Wageningen Livestock Research participate. They are selected by their chair holder of director as a scientist with the potential to grow as a leading scientist needing the stimulus of a course to profile themselves better and to obtain the necessary skills and competences. In total 36 young scientists have participated: 22 from the Animal Science Department and 14 from the participating institutes. In the programme three main components were integrated: a personal assessment followed by three workshops to improve skills and competences, a writing course aiming at Winning Grant Proposals and contributions by experts from the Animal Science Group presenting their experiences in fulfilling the various aspects of leading research programmes and managing research groups. 25

26 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review 2012 In Talents were employee of the University and 10 of the Institutes. Out of this group, 10 talents from the University and 6 from the Institutes can be considered as being very successful (an overall success rate of 53 %), in terms of their subsequent career. The 16 successful Talents now guide 50 PhD s, 3 post docs and 10 assistants. They acquired m 15.1 for research projects. From the 16 Talents, 6 are leading a research group working on their developed research line. The WIAS T&T programme is very successful and this has been recognised by the other Graduate Schools of Wageningen University. A number of Graduate Schools also started with this programme and there are plans to make a university-wide T&T programme. NWO graduate programme After a first unsuccessful bid in 2011 WIAS successfully applied for a grant of the NWO Graduate Programme With this grant we are able to offer 4 PhD positions to excellent MSc students participating in the Research Master Variant (RMV) of the two-year Masters in Animal Sciences (MAS) and Aquaculture and Marine Resource Management (MAM). Excellent MSc students (around 10% based on their Curriculum Vitae, grades in the BSc, personal statement and an interview) are recruited and selected for a RMV, which prepares students for a scientific career. The RMV includes the following elements: Rotations of short acquaintance periods at different WIAS research teams in the first half of the first MSc year Attendance of the annual WIAS Science Day where WIAS research is presented and discussed Research Master Cluster (RMC) in the beginning of the second MSc year Two MSc theses (a major and minor) in the second half of the MSc (long rotations) Staff members of WIAS developed the RMC, teach the course and act as mentor. The RMC specifically aims at acquiring and improving students professional skills in writing and defending a scientific research proposal. The topic choice is free, the only condition is that it complies with the scientific scope of the WIAS clusters and the participating Chair groups. A maximum number of 16 RMV students participate in the RMC. This results in 16 proposals which are evaluated by a jury on scientific quality and feasibility. The top 6 proposals continue in a second round of competitive selection for the WIAS Graduate Programme Grant. Approximately 50% of the WIAS PhD candidates did not follow the MAS or MAM programmes. Therefore a limited number of excellent and promising students (2 per cluster, total 6) are allowed to submit also a proposal and compete in the second round for the WIAS Graduate Programme Grant. In this way a total of 12 proposals (students) compete for the final selection. These will be evaluated and ranked by a jury based on scientific quality and feasibility. The top 4 students will receive the WIAS Graduate Programme Grant. The next four promising students (ranked 5-8) will be actively supported to obtain a PhD position within WIAS. In this way a group of 8 excellent and highly potential students can start their PhD. In august 2012 this NWO Graduate Programme grant was awarded to WIAS and coming years WIAS will be able to set-up a WIAS Graduate Programme to attract excellent MSc students to perform a PhD on a topic, identified and designed by themselves and under supervision of a promoter of their own choice. Quality Supervision Survey At the end of 2010 a Supervision Survey was held among PhD candidates. The survey included background questions about the PhD candidate and their supervisors, a short answer section about the organisation and quality of supervision and an open answer section about highly valued aspects and bottlenecks in supervision. Results showed that 91% of the PhD candidates is satisfied with the quality and organisation of their supervision, with 78% being well- to strongly satisfied. The average time of the PhD candidate spent with their promotor was 0.88 hours per week and 2.5 hours per week with their daily supervisor. The goal is to repeat this Supervision Survey every 2 years. Steps must be taken to decrease the number of PhD candidates that is not satisfied with their supervision. 26

27 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS Proposal review Just after the foundation of the Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS) the Board decided to review PhD project proposals by three external referees (preferably from abroad). The aim was to guarantee scientific quality of PhD research within WIAS and to safeguard the feasibility of PhD projects. A limited number of PhD project proposals is written by WIAS staff members and granted by NWO or the EU before recruiting the PhD student. These projects, already reviewed by scientists before granting, are not re-evaluated by WIAS referees. The majority of the PhD project proposals is written by the PhD students themselves under the guidance of their daily supervisors. The review process was recently evaluated. From the results it can be concluded that 45% of the WIAS PhD projects proposals were considered to be outstanding, 36% required slight revisions and 19% required major revision before approval. The best scores were on quality of supervision, perspectives of the proposed research and the use of existing knowledge. The scores on feasibility, proposed methodology and originality could be improved, but where still good. The external referees gave the score high scientific quality for 81% of the proposals. 6 Analysis, perspectives and expectations for the graduate school WIAS 6.a Earning capacity Annual budget The annual budget of the Department of Animal Sciences amounts to about M 28 and consists of: M 15 University funding o o M 5 for BSc and MSc teaching, output-based funded M 7 for research, of which M 2 basic funding M 4 output-based funded M 1 gained in competition with other WU groups o M 3 for facilities M 2 from the National Research Council NWO (in competition: e.g. Vernieuwingsimpuls ) M 11 from contract funding (EU (i.e. Erasmus Mundus programme and ERC-grants), non-profit organisations, foreign fellowships, industry) Tenured staff is funded by the University. On average, 40% of their time is available for research, including supervision of PhD candidates, and writing and submitting project proposals. Non-tenured staff (mostly postdocs) and PhD students are funded from 3 main sources: Wageningen University: 20%; National Research Council NWO: 25%; Contract funding: 55%. The WIAS Graduate School has an annual budget for: PhD courses and seminars (k 50 per year, excluding fees from participants); Strategic postdoc and PhD projects (k 160 per year, 2-4 new projects every two years, depending on type of project and external matching funds); Fellowships for visiting scientists (k 30 per year); Salaries of the Scientific Director, Assistant Director, Executive Secretary, and Education Coordinator, costs of materials (k 160 per year). In 2012 WIAS was granted k 800 from NWO to offer 4 excellent MSc students a PhD position at the Chair group of their choice. We want to continue this programme using our strategic funds. 27

28 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review b Strategy The main focus points of WIAS are PhD training, focusing on a higher number of courses (especially in cooperation with international graduate schools), talent development with Talents & Topics and the yet to start WIAS Graduate Programme, and the quality of the PhD programme, focusing on review research proposals, maintaining criteria to become staff member and quality monitoring by surveys. 6.c SWOT Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Analysis Goals Strategy Well organised and mature PhD programme High quality and productive staff members Strong embedding in Wageningen UR New flexible and up-to-date experimental facilities Successful talent programme Talents and Topics High quality of PhD supervision Relative low number of NWO grants (VENI, VIDI, VICI) Limited number of In-depth courses WIAS Graduate Programme can attract excellent MSc students Further expansion of international collaboration in PhD training Stimulate PhD candidates to do a few months of research abroad Difficulty maintaining involvement of WIAS staff members working at DLO institutes When the WIAS recruitment of new PhD students remain so successful as during the past years, it may lead to an unbalanced ratio of supervisors/students and decrease the quality of supervision Talent development is being addressed by the Talents & Topics programme and the WIAS Graduate Programme The quality monitoring system is effective, and the supervision survey is of high value to this system Continue the successful Talents & Topics programme in a university-wide programme in collaboration with the other graduate schools More success in attracting NWO grants Set up and implement the WIAS Graduate Programme Increase the number of In-depth courses by cooperation with other European Graduate Schools Continue with talent development with Talents & Topics as a university-wide programme and start with the WIAS graduate programme to attract excellent MSc students Maintaining high quality of supervision by the criteria for staff membership and monitoring by surveys amongst PhD candidates Stimulate PhD candidates to do part of their research abroad, like an internship, to build their CV and network 28

29 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS Annex A List of WIAS Staff Members Department of Animals Sciences Adaptation Physiology research fte status Prof.dr.ir. B. Kemp 0.3 senior Prof.dr. E. Stassen 0.5 senior Prof.dr. E. Decuypere 0.05 senior Dr.ir. H. Parmentier 0.4 senior Dr.ir. N. Soede 0.36 senior Dr.ir. H. van den Brand 0.4 senior Dr.ing. W. Hazeleger 0.3 Dr. A. Knegsel 0.9 Dr. B. Beerda (also BHE) 0.1 Dr. J. Bolhuis 0.9 senior Dr. A. Lammers 0.9 Animal Breeding and Genetics Prof.dr.ir. J.A.M. van Arendonk 0.3 senior Prof.dr. M.A.M. Groenen 0.3 senior Prof.dr. M.E. Visser 0.1 senior Prof.dr. R.F. Veerkamp 0.1 senior Dr.ir. H. Bovenhuis 0.45 senior Dr. J.J. van der Poel 0.4 Dr.ir. R. Crooijmans 0.4 senior Dr.ir. J. Komen 0.4 senior Dr.ir. P. Bijma 0.4 senior Dr. J. Bastiaansen 0.6 Dr. O. Madsen 0.4 Dr. H. Megens 0.4 senior Dr. H. Mulder 0.4 Dr. M. Visker 0.4 senior Dr.ir. E. Kanis 0.05 Dr.ir. L. van der Waaij 0.3 Dr.ir. E. M. van Grevenhof 0.4 Dr.ir. B.J. Ducro 0.2 Dr.ir. R. Blonk 0.4 conditional Dr. E.D. Ellen 0.4 Animal Nutrition Prof.dr.ir. W. Hendriks 0.24 senior Prof.dr.ir. B. Urlings 0.05 senior Prof.dr.ir. L. den Hartog 0.05 senior Dr. J.W. Cone 0.13 senior Dr.ir. J. Dijkstra 0.4 senior research fte status Dr.ir. W. Gerrits 0.32 senior Dr.ir. R.P. Kwakkel 0.2 senior Dr.ir. A.F.B. van der Poel 0.4 Dr.ir. J. van den Borne 0.8 Dr. W. Pellikaan 0.4 Dr. J. van Baal 0.2 conditional Animal Production Systems Prof.dr.ir. A. van der Zijpp 0 Dr.ir. I.J.M. de Boer 0.12 senior Dr.ir. H.M.J. Udo 0.32 senior Dr.ir. S. Oosting 0.4 senior Dr. E. Bokkers 0.32 Aquaculture and Fisheries Prof.dr. J.A.J. Verreth 0.2 senior Prof.dr. A. Smaal 0.1 senior Prof.dr. A.D. Rijnsdorp 0.1 senior Dr.ir. L. Nagelkerke 0.4 senior Dr.ir. J.W. Schrama 0.35 senior Dr. M.C.J. Verdegem 0.3 senior Dr. R. Bosma 0.1 senior Dr. R. Osinga 0.3 Cell Biology and Immunology Prof.dr. H. Savelkoul 0.3 senior Prof.dr. V. Schijns 0.1 senior Dr. B.M.L. van Kemenade 0.25 senior Dr.ir. G.F. Wiegertjes 0.4 senior Dr. E.J. Tijhaar 0.25 Dr. M. Forlenza 0.9 Experimental Zoology Prof.dr.ir. J.L. van Leeuwen 0.3 senior Dr. M. Muller 0.4 Dr.ir. S. Kranenbarg 0.2 Prof.dr. S. Schulte-Merker 0.08 senior Dr. M. Lankheet* 0.3 S. Gussekloo 0.2 conditional 29

30 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review 2012 research fte status Human and Animal Physiology Prof.dr. J. Keijer 0.3 senior Dr. E.M. van Schothorst 0.4 senior Dr. K. Teerds 0.4 senior Dr. A. Nieuwenhuizen 0 Dr. D. van Dartel 0.33 Host-Microbe Interactomics Prof.dr. J. Wells 0.4 senior Dr. P. van Baarlen 0.3 senior Prof.dr. M. Smits 0.1 senior Prof.dr. M. Kleerebezem 0.1 senior Dr. J. Karzewski 0.8 Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology Prof.dr.ir. M.C.M. de Jong 0.3 senior Dr.ir. K. Frankena 0.4 senior Dr.ir. E.A.M. Graat 0.25 senior Behavioural Ecology Prof.dr. M. Naguib 0.4 senior Dr. B. Rodenburg 0.4 senior Dr. B. Beerda 0.1 Dr. C. Hinde 0.4 Dr. H. Hopster Dr. M.M. van Krimpen Dr. E. Lambooij Dr. M.F.W. te Pas Dr. C. van der Peet-Schwering Dr. H. Spoolder Prof.dr. R.F. Veerkamp Dr.ir. A.M. van Vuuren Dr. J.J. Windig Dr. H. Woelders Dr. ir Gert van Duinkerken Dr. K. Lokhorst Dr. Y. de Haas Dr. A. Jansman Dr.ir. B.G. Meerbug Dr.ir. T.V. Vellinga Dr.ir N.W.M. Ogink Dr. P.M. Becker Dr.ir. C.G. van Reenen Dr.ir. P. Bikker Dr. M.B.M. Bracke Dr.ir. E.K. Visser IMARES status senior senior senior senior conditional senior conditional senior Department of Plant Sciences Farm Technology Prof.dr.ir. P. Groot Koerkamp 0.25 senior Mathematical and Statistical Methods Dr. B. Engel 0.4 Central Veterinary Institute Dr. G. Piet Dr. J. Poos Dr. P. Kamermans Dr. I.Y.M. Tulp Dr. T. van Kooten conditional senior conditional Dr. Th Hagenaars Dr. A. de Koeijer Dr. J.M.J. Rebel Dr. P.L. Eblé conditional Livestock Research Dr.ir. A. Aarnink Dr.ir. A. Bannink Dr. M. Calus senior senior 30

31 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS Annex B List of courses and seminars Event Teachers/Organisers ECTS # participants WIAS courses January Nutrient Density of Milk (VLAG/WIAS course) Prof. A.C.M. van Hooijdonk Prof. J.A.M. van Arendonk February Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) Advanced statistics course: Design of Dr. W.J. Koops February Experiments Prof. M. Grossman 17 February Getting started in AS-Reml Ir. A.A. Hulzebosch Dr. B.J. Ducro May Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) May-5 June Statistics for the Life Sciences Dr. H. Bovenhuis Dr. B. Engel Dr. G. Gort October Introduction to R for statistical analysis (PE&RC/WIAS/WIMEK/Biometris course) October Advanced statistics course: Design of Experiments October Advanced visualisation, integration and biological interpretation of -omics data (WIAS/VLAG/Erasmus MC course) November 23 Febr., 23 March 5, 11, 19, 26 March, 2, 19 April 18 Nov., 16 Dec. Dr. G. Gort Dr. J.W.M. Bastiaansen Ir. Albart Coster Dr. W.J. Koops Prof. M. Grossman Dr. P. van Baarlen Dr. G.J.E.J. Hooiveld Dr. M.V. Boekschoten Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) WGS courses (organised by WIAS) Effective behaviour in your professional surroundings Ethics and Philosophy of Animal Science Drs. C. Verdonk Dr. H. Van den Belt Prof. E.N. Stassen Effective behaviour in your Drs. J. Veneman professional surroundings WIAS seminars 12 March WIAS Science Day WIAS PhD students April Genetics of Milk quality Dr. M.H.P.W. Visker May Aspects of lactation- and weaning management for piglets and sows 8 June Friends or fiends? Consequences of social interactions for artificial breeding programs and evolution in natural populations 26 June Natural behaviour and welfare assessment 24 September Drivers of regime shifts in aquatic systems: case-specific or universal? (NWO/IMARES/WIAS/WIMEK seminar) 12 October Genetics and immunology of insect bite hypersensitivity in horses 30 October Of fish and men: curiosities of the immune system 9 December Developments in genome-wide evaluation and genomic selection Dr. N.M. Soede Prof. B. Kemp Dr. T.B. Rodenburg Dr. J.E. Bolhuis Dr. E.D. Ellen Dr. B. Beerda Kristina Raab Andrea Downing Reinier H.R. Lambers Ir. A. Schurink Dr. G. Wiegertjes Dr. P. Bijma # WIAS PhD participants 31

32 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review Event Teachers/Organisers ECTS # participants WIAS courses Advanced statistics course: Design of Dr. W.J. Koops February Experiments Prof. M. Grossman 17 February Getting started in AS-Reml Ir. A.A. Hulzebosch Dr. B.J. Ducro April Fish Immunology workshop Dr. G.F. Wiegertjes Dr. M. Forlenza April Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) June Statistics for the Life Sciences Dr. H. Bovenhuis Dr. B. Engel Dr. G. Gort 7-11 June Quantitative genetics, with a focus on Prof. J.B. Walsh selection theory Dr. P. Bijma October Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) December Advanced statistics course: Design of Experiments WGS courses (organised by WIAS) 3-5 March Ethics and Philosophy in Animal Sciences May-June 8-10 September 3 & 24 November Personal Coaching sessions Effective behaviour in your professional surroundings Ethics and Philosophy in Animal Sciences Effective behaviour in your professional surroundings Dr. W.J. Koops Prof. M. Grossman Prof. Tj. De Cock Buning Prof. E.N. Stassen Dr. J.K.Oldenbroek Dr. S.J. Oosting Drs. N. van Beek Drs. C. Huizinga Prof. Tj. De Cock Buning Prof. E.N. Stassen Dr. J.K.Oldenbroek Dr. S.J. Oosting Drs. J. Veneman Drs. N. van Beek WIAS seminars 28 January WIAS Science Day WIAS PhD students June Biodiversity and Exploitation: Lessons Prof. J.L. van Leeuwen from Lake Tana 31 May Sustainability and Take-up of Multi- Dr. R.H. Bosma Trophic Agriculture & Aquaculture Systems (WIAS/CERES seminar) 29 June Animal reproduction research at ASG- WUR and FD-UU; an update by PhD students Dr. N.M. Soede Dr. P.L.A.M. Vos September Low frequency electromagnetic field exposure and modulation of cellular functions (ZonMW/WIAS seminar) 28 September Dietary lysine and the importance of processing of food- and feedstuffs Dr. B.M.L. van Kemenade Dr. M. Bouwens Prof. H.F.J. Savelkoul Animal Nutrition Group October It makes sense to know your enemy Cell Biology & Immunology Group 4 November Resilience of fish in intensive systems Prof. J.A.J. Verreth (INRA-WUR Platform for Aquaculture) Dr. S. Kaushik 5 November Sole culture in the Netherlands, past, present and future 12 November Biology and physics of articular cartilage during development and disease 9 December The embryonic life of chickens: Factors that influence development Dr. R.J.W. Blonk Experimental Zoology Group Adaptation Physiology Group # WIAS PhD participants 32

33 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Graduate School WIAS 2011 Event Teachers/Organisers ECTS # participants 28 Febr. - 4 March WIAS courses Orientation on mathematical modelling in biology 12 April Measuring Cellular Mitochondrial Function Prof. J.L. van Leeuwen Prof. M.C.M. de Jong Dr. L. Hemerik Prof. J. Keijer April 12th Wageningen Fish Immunology Dr. G.F. Wiegertjes Workshop Dr. M. Forlenza April Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) May Statistics for the Life Sciences Dr. H. Bovenhuis Dr. B. Engel Dr. G. Gort 27 June - 1 July Genomic Selection in Lifestock Dr. Dorian Garrick Dr. Rohan Fernando Dr. Mario Calus October Advanced statistics course: Design of Dr. W.J. Koops Experiments Prof. M. Grossman October Statistical Learning Methods for DNAbased Dr. Daniel Gianola Prediction of Complex Traits (PE&RC, WIAS, EPS course) Dr. Gustavo de los Campos Dr. John Bastiaansen Dr. Marco Bink 8-11 November Introduction course F.R. Little (M.A., Oxon.) November Epigenesis and Epigenetics (WIAS / VLAG course) Dr. W. Hazeleger Dr. A.T.M. van Knegsel Prof. E.J.M. Feskens WGS courses (organised by WIAS) 23 March, 13 April Effective behaviour in your professional surroundings Drs. J. Veneman Drs. P. Fopma 30 March - 1 Ethics and Philosophy in Life Sciences Prof. Tj. De Cock Buning April Prof. E.N. Stassen Dr. S.J. Oosting 5 & 26 October Effective behaviour in your Drs. J. Veneman professional surroundings Drs. J. Tummers 1-3 November Ethics and Philosophy in Life Sciences Prof. Tj. De Cock Buning Prof. E.N. Stassen Dr. S.J. Oosting WIAS seminars 18 January Scientific Research in Animal Welfare: Do we make a difference? PhD Animal Welfare Discussion Group January Genomics and Animal Breeding Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre 3 February WIAS Science Day WIAS PhD students May Healthy as a (sport)horse Dr. E.M. van Grevenhof Dr. B.J. Ducro 9 June Allergenicity in food allergy; Influence of food processing and immunomodulation by lactic acid bacteria Dr. Y.M. Vissers Prof. H.J. Wichers November Nutrient Density of Milk, Milk Genomics and Healthy Benefits of Dairy (NZO/VLAG/WIAS Master Class) 3 November Assessment for sustainable development of animal production systems 17 November Nutrition and fat metabolism in dairy cattle 24 November Nutritional Physiology; Constraints to flexibility in protein and energy metabolism Prof. G.J. Hiddink Dr. F. Pepping Ing. F.A. Steenstra Dr. J.W. Cone Dr. J.T. Schonewille Drs. R.M.A. Goselink Human and Animal Physiology Group # WIAS PhD participants 33

34 Graduate School WIAS WIAS Midterm Review

35 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Chair Groups Part B. Documentation of the Chair Groups 35

36

37 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Breeding and Genetics Animal Breeding and Genetics (ABG) Head of the Chair group: Prof. Johan van Arendonk 1 Research programme and Reflection The Animal Breeding and Genetics group (ABG) provides education and generates knowledge on the role and sustainable use of genetic variation in animals. ABG contributes to our quality of life by generating knowledge to support the adequate supply of safe and healthy food of animal origin, and to enhance the health, welfare and productivity of animals. The group combines expertise in quantitative and molecular genetics related to the biological functioning of animals at population level. ABG studies genetic variation in farm and companion animals, and examines opportunities to use naturally occurring genetic variation in selection schemes. Description of the activities and their results initiated after the recommendations of peer review assessment 2009 (recommendations in italics). a) The mission of ABG seems very appropriate to WIAS as a whole, but the review group was slightly concerned that they might be limited to some extent by this mission as well, which does not explicitly include understanding and knowledge generation. Conducting science for impact has been the main focus of our activities but was not clearly reflected in the mission. The mission statement has been modified to express that creating knowledge plays an important role in our activities. The activities of the group are not restricted to farm animals as illustrated by the following three activities. Closer collaboration has been established with Netherlands Ecology Institute (NIOO), which started with genomics of song birds, and resulted in the appointment of Marcel Visser as extraordinary chair on ecological genetics in Research on genetics of social interactions clearly goes beyond farm animals. In our undergraduate teaching program we have last year introduced a new course on Wild life conservation genetics. This results in closer contacts with groups working on population genetics and is expected to result in joint research activities. These three activities on non-farmed animals not only improves the position of ABG in the broader domain of genetics but also improves our research on farmed animals. b) There has been a rapid increase in numbers of PhD students and the group is aware that it will be challenging to maintain this level in a rigorous funding environment. Some staff seem to have a heavy load of PhD supervision consequential on the requirement for PhD students to be promoted by a full professor. The load of supervision is well spread over the scientific staff which enables the full professors to be involved in a large number of projects. We recognized the need to increase the number of full professors (i.e. with ius promovendi). Recently, two extraordinary chairs, Roel Veerkamp (2011) and Marcel Visser (2012), have been appointed in ABG. In addition, two staff members have entered the tenure-track system which is expected to further increase the number of full professors in a couple of years. c) The group s past record demonstrates their ability to respond to the changing technological and societal environment with uptake of new technologies and refocus of projects in new directions. However, many new opportunities arise in the rapidly developing field of genomics and ABG will need to make a careful choice of new directions to pursue. In this light the Review Committee felt that ABG should consider carefully the relevance of epigenetic mechanisms to their programme. The direction of the research program is regularly evaluated in the light of changes in the research environment and available technologies. We have explored the impact of epigenetics, which has resulted in a few publications, but decided not to further invest in the area. The rapid developments in the field sequencing technology are causing a revolution in our domain in which we are closely involved. 37

38 Animal Breeding and Genetics WIAS Midterm Review 2012 We decided to invest in this area to ensure that we remain at the forefront of using these technologies. For example, Martien Groenen is one of the three coordinators of the International Pig Genome sequencing consortium. d) It is recommended that ABG make a careful assessment of future research directions as well as working hard to maintain their current level of external funding. We aim to maintain a focussed research program and with sufficient critical mass. The research direction is frequently discussed in light of the developments in our domain. In the last year, we (as Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre of Wageningen UR) have had fruitful discussions with the four main breeding organisations based in our country. This has resulted in public private partnership, Breed4Food, which will help us in maintaining are strong international position in research and training. Another important achievement in this area is funding of the European Graduate School on Animal Breeding and Genetics (for more details see below). In the SWOT analysis of the self-evaluation report for the peer review in 2009, the analysis conducted by ABG included three items. These items are listed (in italics) and followed by progress on each of these items. e) Keep focus on combination of quantitative genetic and molecular genetics and on quality of research The research program remained focussed on combination of quantitative genetics and molecular genetics. Also the emphasis on quality has remained and resulted in improvement of citations (see later section). In 2009, advanced research grant (SelSweep) was granted to Martien Groenen which provides a boost to pig genomics research. f) Aim for larger research programmes, including collaboration with other groups Five large collaborative research programmes (>2 PhD candidates) have started since 2009: Breeding sociable swine (with ADP and Free University of Amsterdam), Osteochondrosis in pigs (with ADP and Veterinary Faculty), Divergent selection for natural antibodies in poultry (coordinated by ADP), Resilient dairy cows (with CBI and Animal Health Service), Reduced methane emission of dairy cows (with ANU, PDQ and MIB), Competitiveness of Dairy Value Chain (APS and Egerton University in Kenia). g) Development of strategic international alliances with focus on EU The position of ABG within the EU is strengthened by formation of the European Graduate School on Animal Breeding and Genetics (EGS-ABG). EGS-ABG is an international alliance of four higher education institutions (AgroParisTech, Aarhus University, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and Wageningen University) and six associated partners (from academia to industry) with a strong position in our domain. In 2010, EGS-ABG received funding for 5 cohorts of PhD candidates from the Erasmus Mundus program. The first cohort of 9 PhD candidates started in h) Increase collaboration within Wageningen UR in field of molecular genetics and bioinformatics The need for increased collaboration for sharing infrastructure and exchanging expertise is recognised by groups within Wageningen UR. As a result of the discussions, ABG is included in a recent grant application coordinated by plants sciences groups. ABG is leading an initiative to invest in common ICT-infrastructure for bioinformatics. There is also increased collaboration in research projects through participation in supervising teams and joint PhD project. 38

39 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Breeding and Genetics 2 Composition of the Chair group Table 1 presents the number and the research input of tenured staff, non-tenured staff and PhD candidates in the review period. The research input of tenured staff gradually increased from an average of 2.9 in to 3.42 in The research input by non-tenured staff also increased compared to Due to a change in method of registration, the research input from PhD candidates in the review period ( ) cannot be compared to period The research input by PhD candidates remained high and continued to increase. Table 2 gives an overview of the funding of the research input (first, second and third money stream). This table reflects that the funding from University has slightly increased compared to which resulted from increased university funding for PhD supervision. The large increase in contract funding in 2011 is caused by the start of EU funded projects (European Graduate School EGS-ABG and Research Training Network). Table 1: Research input: number of research staff and PhD candidates (incl fte research i (# 1 /fte 2 ) Average Average # fte # fte # fte # fte # fte Tenured staff Non-tenured staff PhD candidates Total number of staff and PhD candidates 2 Available research time in fte. 3 all PhD categories, except external PhDs Table 2: Funding research staff and PhD 1,2 candidates in fte Average Average University NWO/KNAW/ERC Contracts Total: Available research time in fte. 2 all PhD categories, except external PhDs 3 Research environment and imbedding In 2006, ABG joined forces with the Genetics and Biodiversity cluster of Wageningen Livestock Research of Wageningen UR to form the Animal Breeding and Genomics centre (ABGC). ABGC has a joint strategy for research and acquisition of projects, monthly meetings of management to monitor and plan progress, regular meetings of staff to exchange research findings and ideas, and it also circulates a quarterly electronic newsletter. The strategy of ABGC is to develop expertise in 3 interrelated areas: 1. Animal Breeding: definition of breeding objectives, estimation of genetic parameters, and design of selection schemes. 2. Statistical genetics and genomics. 3. Molecular genetics and bioinformatics: identification and study of the role of individual genes. This expertise is applied to three research themes that fit well in the three WIAS themes: 1. Characterization, utilisation and conservation of (agro)biodiversity 2. Animal Functioning (health, welfare and production) 3. Quality of animal products. 39

40 Animal Breeding and Genetics WIAS Midterm Review 2012 The three areas of expertise and the three research themes play an important role in exchange of research findings and discussion on scientific developments within ABGC. Within WU, we aim for collaboration with groups that have complementary expertise on the biology of a trait (e.g. methane emission, disease resistance, milk quality) or a species (e.g. fish breeding). This approach has been successful, as demonstrated by research programmes on genetics of robustness in laying hens, milk genomics initiative, and development of intervention strategies for insect bite hypersensitivity in horses. Furthermore, we aim for closer collaboration with other groups within WU working on genetics by (1) joint teaching of courses for BSc and MSc students (new course started in 2012), (2) participation in supervision teams of PhD candidates and (3) conducting joint PhD projects (first project started in 2012). Further, we are investigating options to jointly invest in infrastructure for large scale computing. In 2012, four Netherlands-based animal breeding companies (TOPIGS, CRV, Hendrix Genetics and Cobb Europe), and the Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre of Wageningen UR (ABGC), decided to join their research activities and to establish a public-private partnership with Wageningen UR: Breed4Food. The aim is to create a world-leading institute for research and innovation in livestock genetics. Breed4Food will perform world-class genetics and genomics research enabling the industrial partners to realize their growth ambitions on the world market. This public private partnership was developed in response to the Dutch topsector programme Agro & Food. Breed4Food will enable ABGC to remain at the forefront of animal breeding and genetics research. Through establishing the European Graduate School (EGS-ABG) we have strengthened our collaboration within the EU. For the development and dissemination of our expertise on maintenance and utilization of genetic resources in tropical circumstances, we have joint PhD projects with international operating research institutes (i.e. ILRI and WorldFish). EGS-ABG builds on the experiences of the European Master in Animal Breeding and Genetics (EMABG) which started in 2007 and is coordinated by ABG. 4 Output Table 3 presents the research output per category in the review period ( ) and the average over the previous 3-year period. The productivity in the current review period was even higher than in the period The average number of PhD thesis has increased from 5 in to 8 in , the average number of refereed articles has increased from 48 in to 71 in Table 4 shows the productivity per fte tenured staff. Table 3: Total research output per category Average Average Academic Publications Refereed articles Non-refereed articles Books Refereed book chapters Non-refereed book chapters PhD theses Conference papers Total Publications Professional publications Publications general public Other research output Total

41 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Breeding and Genetics Table 4: Productivity per fte tenured staff Average Average Refereed articles Refereed book chapters n/a Total academic publications PhD theses Scientific quality and Societal relevance 5.a Scientific quality The results of bibliometric analysis are shown by year (Table 5) and by research field (Table 6). The crown indicator (CI) increased from 1.59 in to 1.67 in The relative impact (RI) decreased from 1.88 in to 1.68 in This reduction can be explained by high impact (RI=3.40) in 2004 which resulted from 3 publications in Nature on poultry genome which ranked within the 1% most cited publications in their research field. Table 6 reveals, that most of our papers (52%) are published in the research field of Plant&Animal sciences followed by 15% in Agricultural sciences and 15% in Molecular Biology&Genetics. The citation impact for publications in the research field of Molecular Biology&Genetics clearly improved from below world average (n=32, CI=0.64) in to well above world average (N=29, CI=1.5) in the current period. Also the publications in the other research fields except for Immunology (N=4) and Computer Science (N=1) had an impact above world average. We are pleased that we have managed to increase the number of scientific publications by nearly 50% while at the same time maintaining an above world average impact. We are very pleased with the improvement of the impact of papers in the field of Molecular Biology&Genetics which resulted from our long-term and focussed investment in this field. Table 5: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per publication year. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Year of publication N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 %NC (T10) (T1) (NC) % (13) 2% (1) 7% (4) % (7) 1% (1) 4% (3) % (9) 5% (3) 22% (14) % (29) 3% (5) 11% (21) % (48) 1% (3) 8% (19) Table 6: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per research field. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Research Field N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 %NC (T10) (T1) (NC) Agricultural Sciences % (7) 0% (0) 17% (5) Biology & Biochemistry % (3) 9% (1) 9% (1) Clinical Medicine % (2) 0% (0) 13% (1) Computer Science % (0) 0% (0) 100% (1) Environment/Ecology % (1) 50% (1) 0% (0) Immunology % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Molecular Biology & Genetics % (10) 10% (3) 0% (0) Neuroscience & Behavior % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Plant & Animal Science % (5) 0% (0) 13% (13) Psychiatry/Psychology % (1) 0% (0) 0% (0) Social Sciences, general % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) All research fields % (29) 3% (5) 11% (21) 41

42 Animal Breeding and Genetics WIAS Midterm Review 2012 The 5 key publications of ABG in are given below. Key Publications 1. Bijma, P. (2010). Fisher's fundamental theorem of inclusive fitness and the change in fitness due to natural selection when conspecifics interact. J. Evolutionary Biology 23: Biscarini F., H. Bovenhuis, J. van der Poel, T. B. Rodenburg, A. P. Jungerius and J. A. M. van Arendonk (2010). Across-Line SNP Association Study for Direct and Associative Effects on Feather Damage in Laying Hens. Behavior Genetics 40: Blonk, R.W.J., H. Komen, A. Kamstra and J.A.M. van Arendonk (2010). Estimating Breeding Values With Molecular Relatedness and Reconstructed Pedigrees in Natural Mating Populations of Common Sole, Solea Solea. Genetics 184: Groenen M.A.M., P. Wahlberg, M. Foglio, H.H. Cheng, H.-J. Megens, R. P.M.A. Crooijmans, F. Besnier, M. Lathrop, W.M. Muir, G. Ka-Shu Wong, I. Gut and L. Andersson (2009). A high-density SNP-based linkage map of the chicken genome reveals sequence features correlated with recombination rate. Genome Res. 19: Schopen, G.C.B., M.H.P.W. Visker, P.D. Koks, E. Mullaart, J.A.M. van Arendonk, H. Bovenhuis (2011). Whole-genome association study for milk protein composition in dairy cattle. J. Dairy Sci b Societal relevance 1. Objectives with regard the societal relevance of your research. Animal Breeding and Genetics group contributes to our quality of life by providing knowledge to support the adequate supply of safe and healthy food of animal origin, and to enhance the health, welfare and productivity of animals. Breeding organisations are in need for scientific underpinning of their breeding programs, for timely implementation of new insights and for well qualified people. In society, there is concern about a number of aspects of genetic selection. These concerns include the balance of selection goals, biodiversity, and applications of biotechnology. We recognize the need to engage in the dialogue with society and to contribute to discussions on societal acceptability of applications of breeding. 2. Transfer and dissemination of results of our research to our stakeholders Contacts with industry involve direct relation with geneticists of breeding organizations, collaboration in research projects, organization of bi-annual round-table F&G connection in which science and application exchange ideas and recent findings, participation in advisory boards, and contribution to popular magazines and farmers' meetings. The development of Breed4Food will help to further improve the interaction with our industrial stakeholders by not only discussing research finding but also research needs. For the development and dissemination of our expertise on maintenance and utilization of genetic resources in tropical circumstances, we have joint PhD projects with international operating research institutes (i.e. ILRI and WorldFish). For transfer of research finding to general stakeholders, members of ABG contribute to meetings for a general audience, participate in interest groups (e.g. membership of Council for Animal Affairs and Platform Sustainable Animal Breeding), publish in popular magazines, and present findings in interviews. In addition, investigating societal aspects of animal breeding are included explicitly in projects (e.g. research program on breeding sociable swine) 3. Results Two developments resulting from these contacts with industry are the implementation of genomic selection in dairy cattle, pigs and laying hens, and the selection for social breeding values to improve welfare in laying hens and pigs. Furthermore, also the development of Breed4Food builds on the positive results from our interactions with industry over the years. Members of ABG are frequently asked to present key-note lectures at international scientific meeting. We encourage our PhD students to present their results at international scientific meeting. 42

43 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Breeding and Genetics In 2010, the Council of Animal Affairs published a report on Breeding and Reproductive Technologies which introduced a framework for addressing moral issues regarding animal breeding and reproductive technologies. ABG played a very active role in writing this report which was presented to the government. A number of animal breeding organisations are currently implementing this framework. 4. Reflection We have maintained close interaction with stakeholders in the animal breeding domain, both nationally and internationally. Research activities on animal welfare have increased (reduction of cannibalism in laying hens, social interactions in pigs and fish, boar taint, health in cows). Over the last year, we have increased the interactions with society at large. 6 Analysis, perspectives and expectations 6.a Earning capacity We have been successful in attracting funds for conducting research from a wide range of sources. We are particularly pleased with the funding from EU for the European Graduate School EGS-ABG and the personal grants from ERC (Martien Groenen) and NWO (Piter Bijma). The creation of Breed4Food offers new opportunities for the coming years. 6.b Strategy See SWOT in next section 6.c SWOT Strengths Combination of expertise in the fields of quantitative genetics, molecular genetics, and animal breeding Strong international position in our fields, as reflected by funding from EU and ERC, contribution to the Pig and Poultry Genome sequencing initiatives, and involvement in EGS-ABG Large number of scientific publications in a broad range of journals. ABGC: close collaboration of in domain of Animal Breeding and Genomics within Wageningen UR, resulting in sufficient critical mass. Fruitful and long standing collaboration with industry Weaknesses High costs of overhead and infrastructure (compared with international level) Difficulties in attracting international scientists to join the scientific staff Opportunities Rapid developments in the area of genomics Increased interest for robustness, agrobiodiversity, health and welfare of animals (performance under wide range of environments) Increased interest to improve quality of animal products through genetic solutions Increased emphasis on personal grants by funding agencies NWO and ERC Threats Increase in administrative load Increasing costs and funding difficulties of infrastructure for molecular genetic research and bioinformatics Move by funding agencies (EU, NWO) from open programs to calls for large thematic programmes Analysis Keep focus on combination of quantitative genetic and molecular genetics and on quality of research Aim for larger research programmes, including collaboration with other groups Maintain involvement in international alliances with focus on EU Increase collaboration within Wageningen UR in field of molecular genetics and bioinformatics 43

44 Animal Breeding and Genetics WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Adjusted goals Maintain research strategy Aim for one personal grant every two years Use EGS-ABG to improve international collaboration Adjusted strategy Maintain the current composition of scientific staff Aim for balanced growth Focus on further increase of quality by personal grants and publications in high-impact journal Exploiting the opportunities resulting from Breed4Food 44

45 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Adaptation Physiology Adaptation Physiology (ADP) Head of the Chair group: Prof. Bas Kemp 1 Research programme and Reflection The aim of the Adaptation Physiology group is to investigate ways/mechanisms that facilitate and support adaptation of animals to their changing and challenging environment to optimize their welfare and health. Long-term effects of early life conditions on adaptive capacity and their consequences for health and welfare later in life and support to facilitate adaptation during critical transition periods (e.g. weaning of piglets, onset of lactation in dairy cattle, hatching in chickens) are key elements in the research of the group. Since many adaptive capacity issues are multifactorial the Adaptation Physiology group uses a multidisciplinary approach to study adaptation of animals to their environment and has expertise in immunology, energy metabolism, reproduction and behavioural physiology. Peer Review 2009 recommendations and actions: 1/ Continue policy to publish in higher ranking journals not specialized in production animal: This has been successful, 18 % of our publications in the last 3 years are in journals with an impact factor above 3 and for a more general audience like: PloS-ONE, Biology Letters, Developmental and Comparative Immunology and Physiology and Behaviour. The publication of our papers in journals with impact factors above 2 has increased from 24% (last peer review) to 87%. 2/ Be more active in NWO competition: We have been successful in NWO competition. Joint projects were funded on feather pecking in poultry (2 PhD, 2 PostDocs), sociable swine (4 PhD), osteochondrosis in pigs (1 PhD, 1 PostDoc) and recently on selecting for natural antibodies in poultry (1 PhD, 1 Postdoc). 3/ Closer cooperation with Human and Animals Physiology group should be considered: ADP research has a whole animal physiology approach focusing on critical transition periods and long term effects of early environment trying to explain how adaptive physiological reactions explain health and welfare aspects on the short and long run. HAP research has taken another approach with a focus on molecular physiology of mitochondrial function, energy and substrate metabolisms. Currently, based on similar research interests, our chair group has most joint publications and projects with especially with ABG, ANU and CBI. Despite efforts collaboration with HAP has not been materialised yet. 4/ Risk of no specific own core activities and expertise in broad cooperation: We are recognized for our integrative approach with experts in our disciplines focussed on adaptation. We have well defined research lines and establish cooperation with those groups that can add expertise to our research lines. 5/ Absence of specific behavioural and neurobiological expertise is a matter of concern: Since the last peer review, we have been successful in projects that require behavioural expertise (5 PhD projects funded in this period, one cum laude PhD graduation in that area in 2011). Furthermore, we have close cooperation with a new chair group within the department (Behavioural Ecology) which strengthens the behavioural expertise. With the Behavioural Ecology group we play an active role in our cluster Adaptive Animals and Systems and the Centre for Animal Welfare and Adaptation (see later). For our neurobiological expertise we have established cooperation (e.g. shared PhD student) with dr. S. Mechiel Korte, Assoc. Prof. of Psychopharmacology at Utrecht University. 45

46 Adaptation Physiology WIAS Midterm Review 2012 In our previous review we stated that our adjusted goal was to play a pivotal role in the establishment of an Adaptation Physiology Centre in Our group founded with Livestock Research (our DLO partner in Lelystad) a new Centre of Animal Welfare and Adaptation, in which we play a leading role. See paragraph 3. 2 Composition of the Chair group In this review period a small increase is seen in tenured and non-tenured staff. In 2011 a substantial number of PhD students graduated but new ones are recruited in 2012 (at this moment 7 and 2 more to be expected). Besides these PhD students we have 2 external PhD students (started in 2009 and 2010, not included in table). Table 1: Research input: number of research staff and PhD candidates (incl fte research i (# 1 /fte 2 ) Average Average # Fte # fte # Fte # fte # fte Tenured staff Non-tenured staff PhD candidates Total number of staff and PhD candidates. 2 Available research time in fte. 3 All PhD categories, except external PhDs Total funding and funding from NWO has increased substantially. Table 2: Funding research staff and PhD 1,2 candidates in fte Average Average University NWO/KNAW/ERC Contracts Total: Available research time in fte. 2 All PhD categories, except external PhDs 3 Research environment and imbedding Within the department of Animals Science ADP is part of the cluster Adaptive Animals and Systems (with AFI, APS and BHE). This cluster has a mixture of animal and systems approaches and will work on connecting and integrating animal and system approaches. Within the Animals Sciences Group in 2011, ADP has initiated the development of the new Centre for Animal Welfare and Adaptation. The core of this centre consists of the Livestock Research department Animal Welfare and ADP. Recently, the new Behavioural Ecology group joined the centre. The centre has weekly joint scientific meetings, coordinates and facilitates knowledge transfer, works on joint acquisition and joint projects (e.g. on preventing feather pecking, evaluation of group housing systems for pregnant sows, gilt rearing management and development of new loose housing system for lactating sows) and presents opinions to stakeholders on various issues concerning health and welfare of livestock ( 46

47 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Adaptation Physiology This centre is unique in the Netherlands, ADP plays a leading role and CAWA is expected to strengthen the position of the partners. Furthermore, partly through CAWA, we have established much closer cooperation with VIC Sterksel (Pig Innovation Centre) and Dairy Campus. These groups in ASG focus on translation of research findings into practice thereby increasing the impact of our work. This cooperation inspires us to formulate relevant fundamental research questions and aids in project funding. On the project level we have substantial cooperation (joint research, exchange of or shared PhD students, etc.) within the department, within the university and contract research organisation and internationally. Cooperation is reflected in our % of shared publications with other groups. In 2011, 40% of our publications was shared with international research groups (e.g. in UK, Sweden, France, Denmark, Australia, USA, Belgium), 40% with national research groups (e.g. university groups, Utrecht, Groningen) and 20% non-shared. There is no outspoken international forum focussing on adaptation so results are predominantly presented in fields like reproduction in swine, incubation research in poultry, immunology in poultry, applied ethology in swine and poultry and energy metabolism in poultry, swine and cattle. Within these fields our multidisciplinary approach and focus on adaptation is appreciated and results in regular congress speaker invitations (see paragraph 5a). 4 Output Compared to average number of refereed scientific publications have increased by about 20%. Table 3: Total research output per category Average Average Academic Publications Refereed articles Non-refereed articles Books Refereed book chapters Non-refereed book chapters PhD theses Conference papers Total Publications Professional publications Publications general public Other research output Total Table 4: Productivity per fte tenured staff Average Average Refereed articles Refereed book chapters na Total academic publications PhD theses

48 Adaptation Physiology WIAS Midterm Review Scientific quality and Societal relevance 5.a Scientific quality In spite of our approach to study adaptive capacity in relation to health and welfare of farm animals (an animal science approach) we are aiming (successfully) to publish in journals with a wider scientific impact than farm animals. In this review period 18% of our publications are in such journals with impact factors above 3. Animal Science journals normally have impact factors between 1 and 3. Within these journals we aim for the higher impact journals (73% of our animal science papers are in animal science papers ranking between impact factors 2 and 3). Numbers of publications per year have increased. Our work regularly results in speaker invitations to international scientific conference (9 times in 2011). Furthermore, in 2011, we had about 40 conference contributions in posters or papers, mainly by our PhD students. Our PhD students regularly win prizes for travel grants, best paper or poster awards (6 times in last 3 years). Table 5 and 6 provide an bibliometric analysis, table 5 by year of publication and table 6 by research field. The CI (average 1.02) and RI (average 1.14) we get from our publications are slightly above world average. Table 5: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per publication year. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Year of publication N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 %NC (T10) (T1) (NC) % (2) 0% (0) 4% (1) % (0) 0% (0) 15% (4) % (2) 0% (0) 29% (12) % (4) 0% (0) 18% (17) % (21) 1% (1) 13% (21) Table 6: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per research field. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Research Field N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 (T10) (T1) %NC (NC) Agricultural Sciences % (0) 0% (0) 43% (3) Clinical Medicine % (0) 0% (0) 33% (1) Immunology % (0) 0% (0) 25% (1) Molecular Biology & Genetics % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Neuroscience & Behavior % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Plant & Animal Science % (3) 0% (0) 15% (11) Psychiatry/Psychology % (1) 0% (0) 33% (1) Social Sciences, general % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) All research fields % (4) 0% (0) 18% (17) 48

49 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Adaptation Physiology 5 key publications of the Chair group: Oostindjer, M.; Mas Muñoz, J.; Brand, H. van den; Kemp, B.; Bolhuis, J.E. (2011) Maternal presence and environmental enrichment affect food neophobia of piglets Biology Letters 7 (1). - p Oostindjer, M.; Bolhuis, J.E.; Simon, K.; Brand, H. van den; Kemp, B. (2011) Perinatal Flavour Learning and Adaptation to Being Weaned: All the Pig Needs is Smell PLoS One 6 (10). - p. 7. e Bergstra, T.J.; Smeets, K.; Nieuwland, M.G.B.; Parmentier, H.K. (2010) In vivo and in vitro post-translational polymorphism of chicken natural auto-antibodies Developmental and Comparative Immunology 34 (8). - p Lammers, A.; Wieland, W.H.; Kruijt, L.; Jansma, A.; Straetemans, T.; Schots, A.; Hartog, C.G. den; Parmentier, H.K. (2010) Successive immunoglobulin and cytokine expression in the small intestine of juvenile chicken Developmental and Comparative Immunology 34 (12). - p Molenaar, R.; Anker, I. van den; Meijerhof, R.; Kemp, B.; Brand, H. van den (2011) Effect of eggshell temperature and oxygen concentration during incubation on the development and physiological status of broiler hatchlings in the perinatal period Poultry Science 90 (6). - p b Societal relevance 1/ The objectives of our group are: To train MSc students in science and a responsible position towards animals. To train PhD students to become independent researchers introduced in the international scientific world. To be an interesting and creative partner for industry, NGO s and ministry for research and knowledge transfer. To contribute to a sustainable and careful animal production by research on new developments in management and production systems and information exchange to farmers and veterinarians. 2/ Results: To disseminate results in the scientific world we stimulate PhD students to present their results on national and international conferences. To disseminate our results in practice we have invested in creating impact by: Contributing to national and international conferences with a more applied audience (farmers, veterinarians, industry, NGO s) (in 2011, 22 presentations). Presenting our results in more popular journals (in 2011, 14 publications). Organising seminars or interactive workshops for stake holders, and organizing and taking part in post academic courses. In 2011 we organised seminars Learning how to eat like a pig and The embryonic life of chickens: factors that influence development, which each had approximately 100 participants and organized or took part in 4 post academic courses. Investing in connection of CAWA with our applied research centres. Together with Sterksel and Livestock Research, our group worked out new ideas for the farrowing house for the future and worked out a fundamental and applied research and implementation program. This has been discussed with various stakeholders and we got first resources to start with this new development. Jointly with our partners in Lelystad (CAWA) we develop similar cooperation with Dairy Campus and in the field of poultry research. Close cooperation with the industry to support new developments that are put into practice. E.g. with the industry we work on new systems combing hatching and early development in broilers 49

50 Adaptation Physiology WIAS Midterm Review 2012 (Patio from Vencomatic). Together with industry we study possibilities to come to a new production system in which the dry period of dairy cows is shortened or omitted. Based on our contributions to industry new incubators are developed, new feeding systems (e.g. flavour conditioning diets for pigs), new protocols for oestrus regulation in post weaning sows, etc. 3/ Reflection We think we made good progress to improve the societal impact of our research and are well acknowledged by the various stakeholders involved. For further progress on systems that improve animal health and welfare we realise that a broader approach including economics and environmental impact is of interest. The recently created cluster Adaptive Animals and Systems gives good opportunities to contribute and jointly work on these issues. We expect that trough working on impact we develop solid and relevant fundamental questions for our research program and increase our chances for funding. 6 Analysis, perspectives and expectations 6.a Earning capacity Table 2 represents only the funding of staff. Funding of PhD students comes for about 19% from university priority programmes, 18% from DLO funding, 25% NWO programmes and 38% from industry. We think that we have a nicely balanced portfolio. We expect no problems to keep our incomes from various sources at a good level. 6.b Strategy The vision, mission and research strategy will be maintained because the issues we study are well received in science, industry and society. With the cooperation in CAWA, VIC Sterksel and Dairy Campus we think we offer solutions for industry and society from fundamental research to implementation. This offers greater acquisition possibilities (especially in TOP sectors) and results in increased impact of science. Our role in this cooperation is to address the more fundamental research questions based on whole animal physiology. We will maintain our strategy to invest in post docs to support growth of the group and to sustain good scientific guidance of our PhD students We will maintain our strategy to have balanced publication strategy and will try to increase impact of our publications. 50

51 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Adaptation Physiology 6.c SWOT Strengths Multidisciplinary group with strong focus on adaptation able to tackle multifactorial problems Good funding in a balanced portfolio and good industry involvement Strong international reputation Strong in animal experimental work with good facilities Leadership in CAWA Weaknesses Multidisciplinary means less critical mass for each of the fundamental disciplines Animal experimental work as core business is expensive Opportunities Strong interest in adaptation as a concept to increase health, welfare and robustness in industry and society Increased attention for animal health (reduction of antibiotics) Increased NGO activity towards animal welfare New chair in Behavioural Ecology Threats Being regarded and judged as a fundamental biology chair instead of an animal sciences chair Competition with disciplinary groups Industry in animal husbandry less organized than in breeding and nutrition Reduced involvement of ministry in research agenda Analysis The research strategy fits well with the industry en societal interests Good opportunities for fundamental research Critical mass is increased with the formation of CAWA Good involvement in TOP sectors is required Goals Strong involvement in the TOP sector plans regarding health and welfare Work on good balance between fundamental and applied research Use the networks to translate research to impact and use the networks for balanced programs for fundamental and applied research Further development of CAWA towards cattle and poultry International exposure of CAWA and further cooperation Strategy Use our industry contacts (on level of supplier industry as well as NGO s and farmer organisations) to put CAWA issues on the agenda and guard our fundamental role in it Further central role of CAWA in agenda setting towards pigs poultry and cattle Cooperation within department with APS to broaden development of new systems approach Establish strategic cooperation with new Behaviour Ecology chair No disciplinary broadening of our research field Sustainable growth in post docs and PhD students 51

52 Adaptation Physiology WIAS Midterm Review

53 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Nutrition Animal Nutrition (ANU) Head of the Chair group: Prof. Wouter Hendriks 1 Research programme and Reflection Mission: Explore the potential of animal nutrition to improve the quality of life. The Animal Nutrition group generates and transfers knowledge of the nutrition of animals to improve their production, health and welfare in a sustainable manner and contribute to the quality of life. The Animal Nutrition group s research endeavours to provide a fundamental understanding of nutritional processes and the effect of dietary compounds on the health, growth, welfare or longevity of production and companion animals. We study the supply of nutrients via consumption of food/feed and utilisation by animals for efficiency of production, animal health and welfare, environmental impact of animal production systems, product quality as well as behaviour, vitality and longevity. The Animal Nutrition group focuses its research efforts into production animal nutrition to optimise the production of safe and healthy foods for human consumption in a sustainable manner and to safeguard the health and welfare of animals. Our nutrition research of animals held for companionship aims to optimise their health, welfare and longevity. Strategic focus: ANU develops knowledge on the utilisation of (anti-)nutrients in feed/feed ingredients and their impact on the animal. We follow dietary nutrients as they are broken down (digested or fermented), absorbed and metabolised by animals. Nutrient analyses, feed technology, digestion and absorption, fermentation, nutrient metabolism and the effects of nutrients on gene expression are the core areas of our research. Our in vitro simulation methods for digestion/fermentation processes and mechanistic modelling of nutrient utilisation are instrumental in providing further insight into the nutrient metabolism by animals. The Animal Nutrition chair group conducts its research within the boundaries of a larger Centre (Centre for Animal Nutrition, CAN); a collaboration in research and education of ANU with the Division of Animal Nutrition of Wageningen Livestock Research (Lelystad) and the Nutrition chair group (currently held by W. Hendriks) of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University. The Centre for Animal Nutrition aims to be THE leading Centre in animal nutrition research and education in Europe. Due to this collaboration, nutritional expertise and international excellence in key strategic areas are maintained, competition/duplication is minimised and new research areas are developed, in close accordance with the mission statements of Wageningen UR and Utrecht University. The three pillars within the Centre are complementary to each other and mutual added value is the basis for collaboration. Furthermore, a bottom-up approach, staff motivation and enthusiasm are main driving forces for the development of new ideas and concepts and as such ensures the future viability of the Centre. To develop specific research areas, a Champion has been appointed for major animal species (ruminants, pigs, poultry and cats/dogs) as well as feed technology. The Champion is charged with development of the research in his/her area in collaboration with the head of the group. The Champion coordinates with colleagues of the other two CAN groups the development of joint research proposals. There is a focus in research depending on the animal species of interest. Ruminant nutrition is primarily (but not exclusively) focussed around the most important processes/aspects of rumen fermentation, milk composition, greenhouse gas emission/mitigation and the modelling of nutrient flows. 53

54 Animal Nutrition WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Canine/feline nutrition research is, due largely to ethical constraints, centred around feed technology and in vitro methodology while several areas of importance have been identified for the study of the nutrition of pigs, poultry and veal calves. Expertise of ANU staff members in the abovementioned areas is continuously being used and developed as part of international consortia or PhD research projects. Equine nutrition expertise as well as clinical nutrition has been transferred to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University, where also Champions have been appointed. The above-described expertise and capabilities are utilised to conduct research that contributes to a number of themes within the domain of animal science and production. The strategic focus provides direct reference to areas of research interest and potential projects to be developed depending on the opportunities which are provided for research funding nationally and internationally. As such, capabilities and expertise are utilised (within the Centre) to develop research proposals for various funding organisations. Feed evaluation science, efficiency of production, environmental pollution, animal health, product quality and feed ingredient security are major themes of the animal feeds industry. Governmental and EU themes include animal health and welfare, sustainability, environmental impact of production and the bio-based economy. Within all these themes, nutrition plays a major role and ANU has been and remains to be expertly positioned to contribute to the themes of both industry and the government/eu. Since the last peer review, ANU has actively implemented its strategy as described above and incorporated virtually all recommendations made by the 2008 WIAS peer review committee. aim to secure some prestigious NWO and EU grants in the future A number of research proposals have been developed to secure more prestigious NWO or EU funding. The following were successful: Dr J van der Borne has secured a Veni grant entitled: Improving glucose homeostasis by optimizing the combination of dietary glucose and fatty acid sources in veal calves. An NWO project was secured entitled: Novel roughage-based feeding strategies to improve welfare of veal calves. We are a partner in an EU funded FP7 programme Interplay which is led by the Microbiology chair group of Wageningen University. We are a partner in a Marie Curie Research Training Network of the European Union entitled: Optimising plant polyphenols in LEGUMES for ruminant nutrition PLUS health PLUS environmental sustainability, which is a continuation of the HealthyHay project. An STW project was granted entitled: Increasing the utilization of organic waste and low value feeds with the help of lignin degrading fungi. companion animal nutrition The area of companion animal nutrition has actively been developed over the past three years. The following successes can be reported: Funding for a PhD scholar in collaboration with MARS to study Lysine carbohydrate interaction in processed pet foods. We have obtained funding from MARS to appoint a post-doctoral fellow to study Fermentation in the canine colon. Within the CAN (Utrecht University), a PhD candidate has been appointed to study Oxalate excretion by cats and dogs. Establishment of an Honorary Research Fellow position in the area of companion animal nutrition. Currently awarded to Prof G. Janssens of Gent University. Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by MARS and Wageningen University. Investment in petfood processing equipment for research and student education. 54

55 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Nutrition decrease funding of the group is of some concern Much focus has been placed on securing research funding from more prestigious sources (see above) but also industry related research funding as well as University funding for research and education. ANU has been successful in attracting research funding for PhD programmes via various funding organisation including Product Boards (Animal Feeds, Dairy), Carbohydrate Competence Centre, STW, EU FP7, Marie Curie Training Network, Wageningen UR, etc. further their linkage with Human Nutrition and Wageningen s Top Institute Attempts to link more closely with Human Nutrition have been undertaken but proven difficult to realise. Linkage to Wageningen s Top Institute has been achieved via a project entitled: Towards sustainable dairy cattle production by improved understanding of and tools to measure methane emission. Development of these linkages is an on-going process and will be continued in the future. that the group forges a closer alliance with the Human and Animal Physiology Chair group Within the Department of Animal Sciences, clusters have been formed. ANU is part of the Cluster Animal Biology, Nutrition and Health of which the Human and Animal Physiology (HAP) chair group is also a member. Regular meetings are held to discuss opportunities for research funding and collaborative research projects. In addition, we have conducted joint research projects in the area of nutrigenomics and the first joint publication has been submitted. In addition to the recommendation made by the peer review committee, we have actively worked to meet the goals, eliminate a number of the identified weaknesses, and nullified treats as specified in the SWOT analysis made during the previous review. The research area of equine nutrition has been fully transferred to Utrecht University and much closer collaboration of staff between the Utrecht and Wageningen groups has been achieved. The CAN has been strengthened by further integration of and collaboration between staff from member groups. This has resulted in several joint research programmes being funded and appointment of PhD scholars through the Division of Nutrition in Lelystad. In addition, CAN has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Centraal Veevoeder Bureau (CVB), the feed evaluation activities of the Product Board Animal Feeds. Investment into Nutrigenomics have occurred and a number of articles have already been published. We have also actively guide young talents especially MSc students, which has resulted in several of these students taking up PhD position in our group. Finally, much of the aging laboratory equipment has been replaced by new state of the art equipment (e.g. GCC-IRMS) and animal research facilities have been newly build. 2 Composition of the Chair group Tenured staff has remained constant throughout the evaluation period. As a result of increasing funding, non-tenured staff has increased steadily whilst the number of PhD students holds steady at around PhD students. Table 1: Research input: number of research staff and PhD candidates (incl fte research i (# 1 /fte 2 ) Average Average # fte # fte # fte # fte # fte Tenured staff Non-tenured staff PhD candidates Total number of staff and PhD candidates 2 Available research time in fte 3 all PhD categories, except external PhDs 55

56 Animal Nutrition WIAS Midterm Review 2012 University funded staff over the evaluation period has remained relatively constant. Due to the increased focus on securing prestigious grants, funding in the NWO/KNAW/ERC category has increased as has the staff funded by industry which has also increased. Overall our funding for research staff has increased to approximately 18. Table 2: Funding research staff and PhD 1,2 candidates in fte Average Average University NWO/KNAW/ERC Contracts Total: Available research time in fte. 2 all PhD categories, except external PhDs 3 Research environment and imbedding Within Wageningen UR, ANU collaborates amongst others through joint research projects with a number of other Chair groups including groups within the Department (e.g. ADP, HAP, CBI, AFI, APS), with other Wageningen University Chair groups (e.g. Microbiology, Food Chemistry (FC) Nutrition, Metabolism & Genomics (NM&G), Entomology). Nationally, ANU is part of the Centre for Animal Nutrition (CAN), a collaboration in research and education with the Division of Animal Nutrition of Wageningen Livestock Research (Lelystad) and the chair in Nutrition (currently held by W. Hendriks) of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University. The Centre for Animal Nutrition aims to be the leading European Centre in animal nutrition research and education. The Centre for Animal Nutrition has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Centraal Veevoeder Bureau [Central Bureau of Animal Feeds] to strengthen each other s activities in the area of feed evaluation and jointly conduct research to further develop the area of feeds science and feed evaluation. Two industry supported positions have been created at the Animal Nutrition group. Two employees, (one from Agrifirm and one from Nutreco) have been seconded to ANU. Both scientists are responsible for conducting research and teaching activities similar to those of employed university lecturers. Several employees of animal feed companies (Provimi/Cargill, Nutreco, Agrifirm, de Heus,) are pursuing their PhD in collaboration with ANU. Internationally and within Europe, INRA (France) is a key partner of ANU. The Memorandum of Understanding at an institutional level between INRA and the Animal Sciences Group forms a solid basis for strategic collaboration in the future. Several topics within the field of animal nutrition are currently being developed as a result of this partnership. The collaboration in the area of feed evaluation between INRA and CAN/ANU/CVB is now being implemented European wide by involving other research groups in Norway, Denmark, Spain, Germany and Italy. The Animal Nutrition group was successful in obtaining funding from the European Commission for Education & Training under the Erasmus Mundus programme to set up a new European joint Master of Science course in Sustainable Animal Nutrition and Feeding. The focus of this master course is Twice the food production at half the ecological footprint. ANU collaborates in this programme with three other Higher Education Institutes (University of Aarhus, Denmark, Ecole d'ingénieurs de Purpan, France and University Debrecen, Hungary) and is supported by the international feed industry (Nutreco, Provimi, Adisseo, Chr. Hansen, DLG-group, de Heus) and academic partners worldwide (Massey University, New Zealand; NIAS, Vietnam; Volgograd State Academy of Agriculture, Russia; NWA&F University, China). 56

57 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Nutrition Over the past 3 years we have had excellent collaborations with internationally leading EU based Universities (e.g. Utrecht, Reading, Ås, Aarhus, Bern, Bonn, Leon, Kopenhagen, Maastricht and others) and research institutes (e.g. Rowett Research Institute, INRA) as part of EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 or individual research projects. Outside Europe, collaborations (many longstanding) exist with leading scientists of the University of University of Illinois (US) on the energy value of feeds; of Michigan State University (US) on nutrigenomics; of UC Davis on nutritional modelling as well as energy metabolism; of the University of Alberta (Canada) in the area of pig nutrition; of MARDI (Malaysia) in poultry nutrition; of Hue University (Vietnam) in pig/poultry nutrition and of the National Institute of Animal Husbandry (Hanoi, Vietnam) in ruminant nutrition and others. One of the senior staff members of ANU (Dijkstra) is a member of the Centre for Nutrition Modelling (CNM) of Guelph University (Canada), a centre aiming to develop and utilise models in animal (production) systems. 4 Output The output and productivity show a slight dip in 2009 and 2010 which is attributable to the change in leadership which occurred in Sept 2005 with the first PhD programmes secured by the head of the group by the end of One of the goals was to maintain the very good to excellent productivity. We have maintained our high number of PhD theses (yearly average 6.0 compared to 6.0 over the previous peer review); our refereed articles output (yearly average 42 compared to 49 over the previous peer review) has seen a dip but is now again at the expected level; we have increased the conference papers (from 14 to 19), increased the professional publications (10 to 47) and other research output (Table 3). Overall the research output has increased over the evaluation period (91 to 174). Productivity per tenured staff has seen a dip in terms of peer reviewed articles but is back up to the level of the research output target of the group. Overall the productivity per unit tenured for total academic publications is similar to that of the previous period (Table 4) PhD theses. Table 3: Total research output per category Average Average Academic Publications Refereed articles Non-refereed articles Books Refereed book chapters Non-refereed book chapters PhD theses Conference papers Total Publications Professional publications Publications general public Other research output Total

58 Animal Nutrition WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Table 4: Productivity per fte tenured staff Average Average Refereed articles Refereed book chapters na Total academic publications PhD theses Scientific quality and Societal relevance 5.a Scientific quality The group has four staff members who are members of editorial boards of international journals (including executive and associate editorship positions) incl. the British Journal of Nutrition (IF 2011 = 3.013), Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (IF 2011 = 1.436), Animal Feed Science and Technology (IF 2011 = 1.691), Animal (IF 2011 = 1.744) and the Journal of Agricultural Science (IF 2011 = 2.041). In addition, ANUs emeritus Prof Verstegen is editor of Nutrition Research Reviews (IF 2011 = 4.842) and Livestock Science (IF 2011 = 1.506). With the exception of the Br. J. Nutr. which is within the top 30% of its ISI category, the other five journals are within the top 25% of their respective ISI category. Key publications: Bosch, G.; Verbrugghe, A.; Hesta, M.; Holst, J.J.; Poel, A.F.B. van der; Janssens, G.P.J.; Hendriks, W.H. (2009) The effects of dietary fibre type on satiety-related hormones and voluntary food intake in dogs. British Journal of Nutrition 102 (2). - p (IF 2011 = 3.013) Dijcker, J. C.; van Baal, J.; Plantinga, E. A.;Hendriks, W. H. (2011) Influence of dietary composition on calcium oxalate urolithiasis in cats, with an emphasis on endogenous oxalate synthesis. Nutrition Research Reviews 24: p (IF 2011 = 4.842) Ellis, J.L.; Bannink, A.; France, J.; Kebreab, E.; Dijkstra, J. (2010) Evaluation of enteric methane prediction equations for dairy cows used in whole farm models. Global Change Biology 16 (12). - p (IF 2011 = 6.862) Wilson, F.A.; Borne, J.J.G.C. van den; Calder, A.G.; O'Kennedy, N.; Holtrop, G.; Rees, W.D.; Lobley, G.E. (2009) Tissue methionine cycle activity and homocysteine metabolism in female rats: impact of dietary methionine and folate plus choline. American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism 296 (4). - p. E702 - E713. (IF 2011 = 4.746) Dijkstra, J.; Oenema, O.; Bannink, A. (2011) Dietary strategies to reducing N excretion from cattle: implications for methane emissions. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 3 (5). - p (IF 2011 = 2.438) The policy of ANU is to publish all the research results in peer reviewed journals such that the highest impact is obtained. This is not synonymous with publication in the highest impact journals. Although we aim to publish in high impact journals, impact also encompasses the suitability of the journal in relation to the particular research. Examples are work published by our Vietnamese and Indonesian students in the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Science or poultry research. In addition, ANU staff members conduct nutritional research involving a number of animal species and citation scores for research into for example companion animal nutrition are generally less well sited due to the relatively small number of scientists working in this area. With this and our high productivity (Table 3 and 4) in mind, on average 16% of our articles are T10 articles and our articles are cited 31% above what can be expected based on our colleagues who produce the same types of documents, of the same age and in the same subject area (Table 5 and 6). Both have increased compared to the previous period. 58

59 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Nutrition Table 5: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per publication year. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Year of publication N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 (T10) (T1) %NC (NC) % (8) 0% (0) 13% (6) % (5) 0% (0) 7% (2) % (5) 0% (0) 31% (12) % (18) 0% (0) 17% (20) % (28) 0% (1) 15% (33) Table 6: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per research field. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Research Field N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 %NC (T10) (T1) (NC) Agricultural Sciences % (10) 0% (0) 11% (4) Biology & Biochemistry % (1) 0% (0) 0% (0) Environment/Ecology % (1) 0% (0) 0% (0) Microbiology % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Plant & Animal Science % (6) 0% (0) 22% (16) All research fields % (18) 0% (0) 17% (20) 5.b Societal relevance 1. Objectives What? The Animal Nutrition group sees it as its role to provide accurate scientific information and opinions based on science related to the nutrition of animals in a broader societal context. Besides continuously improving our educational resources for our students, an active role is taken to ensure that scientific councils, ministries, universities and academic researchers use accurate information about animal nutrition. In addition, we take an active role in the provision of information based on science in wider societal debates. We answer many requests for information by colleagues, journalists and the general public which are viewed as a service to society. Our aim is to transfer scientific knowledge in the field of animal nutrition so that informed rather than emotional opinions and decisions are made by policy makers. For the industry we aim to provide new scientific insights to experts in the field and opportunities to continuing education. Who? Our stakeholders are students, researchers, policy makers, government employees, the feed industry, farmers, veterinarians, consultants, and the general public. How? Dissemination occurs actively via colloquia, newsletters, conferences, memberships of boards, councils and working groups, post-graduate education courses, seminars, workshops, invited lecturers, etc. 2. Results Personal contacts The Animal Nutrition group has a large number of joint research projects with industry and a very good scientific network and industry network. The two industry based ANU professors (L. den Hartog and B. Urlings) provide strong linkage to the industry. In addition, two researchers have been seconded from industry to work at ANU. Four of our staff members are editors of scientific journals (see above) and the head of the group is a member of the Council for Animal Affairs, which is an independent Council representing the interests of animals in the Dutch society. 59

60 Animal Nutrition WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Our staff are invited to give key note addresses at international conferences on a regular basis and are on expert councils for industry and science (e.g. Sofiproteol, Global Research Alliance for the Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emission, CVB working groups). Over the past three years, an estimated 25 national and international visitors (professors, researchers, quest PhD students, interns, etc.) stayed with our group for periods ranging from 4 weeks to 14 months. In addition, over the past 3 years, two of ANUs senior staff members have spent a sabbatical period at the University of Guelph Canada and University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. On several occasions, staff have acted as experts for the prosecution in Court cases and provided expert advice to local governmental organisations from which policy regulations have been developed. Questions ( and telephone) from pet owners, farmers and other stakeholders are routinely answered by a number of ANU staff members. All our PhD students who graduated over the past 3 years were employed within 2 weeks after graduation and although accurate information is lacking, the percentage of MSc students finding employment within 6 months after graduation is high (guestimation ~90-95%). ANU had (and still has) on average 6.3 external PhD candidates who conduct research in their own institution (industry or research institute) under the guidance of an ANU staff member. Media exposure Several ANU staff members have given interviews for television and radio programmes on a variety of subjects, ranging from greenhouse gas emissions by dairy cattle, importance of feed maize to dairy cattle, nutrition of companion animals and feed ingredient supply. On the third Thursday of every months, colloquia, open to the public and visited by industry, are being held, where our MSc students present the research they have been conducting as part of their MSc thesis. Publications Information from the abovementioned colloquia and our research is reported by the attending journalists of magazines such as De Molenaar, Petfood, and Veeteelt. To ensure that accuracy of information is used by journalists, one-page summaries are written and provided before the start of the colloquia. Every 3 months, a Centre for Animal Nutrition Newsletter is developed (see link on the ANU website providing information about the Centre, research results, promotions, etc. and is distributed by to over 1400 subscribers (national and international). One staff member of ANU (de Jonge) has contributed to the FAO Animal Production and Health Manual entitled: Quality Assurance for Animal Feed Analysis Laboratories, a publication to improve quality of laboratories especially in developing countries. Co-financing A large number of funded projects with co-finance from industry have been conducted over the past 3 years. Cofunding has been obtained from : Industry: MARS, Nutreco, Agrifirm, FrieslandCampina, Cargill/Provimi, VanDrie Groep, Alzchem, Orffa, Cnr Hansen, CRV, four Dutch Product Boards, Nutravit, and more. European Union: EU FP7 Interplay, Marie Currie RTN LEGUME+ and HealthyHay, Erasmus Mundus, European Regional Development Fund. International funds: FAO, USDA. Government: Ministry of Economics, Agriculture and Innovation, STW, Agentschap NL/Senter Novem, Provincial funds. Within CAN, facilities are shared so that optimal use is achieved. Laboratory facilities are shared with the Human and Animal Physiology group. Other products Two ANU staff members are co-inventors on a patent which has been granted to Cargill/Provimi. ANU has developed a Tier 3 Mechanistic Rumen Fermentation model which is used nationally to calculate methane emission from dairy cattle in the Netherlands. The model is furthermore used by Dutch-based feed companies to calculate feeding values of feed ingredients. 60

61 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Nutrition Annually and two yearly, a number of post-academic courses are given by ANU including 1) Pig Nutrition, 2) Poultry Nutrition and Management, 3) Ruminant Nutrition, 4) Companion Animal Nutrition & Health, 5) Voluntary Feed Intake of Farm Animals and 6) Feed Evaluation Science. These post-graduate activities aim to transfer current and new knowledge to the animal feed industry, veterinarians, consultants and other stakeholders. All these courses are annually updated. Annually, CAN/ANU organises three symposia (Ruminant, Pig and Poultry Nutrition) where international experts in particular subject areas are invited for key note addresses. These symposia are attended by representatives from feed and feed additive industry, pig/poultry/dairy industry, research institutes, governmental organizations, students and others. 3. Reflection As apparent from the above, much time and effort has been spent over the past years to disseminate research results and provide information to stakeholders other than those in science. The societal interest in greenhouse gas emissions, companion animal health and environmental issues have yielded many requests for information. The symposia and post-graduate courses ANU (co-) organises have seen an excellent attendance and the quarterly newsletters are well-received by the over 1400 subscribers. The high workload of ANU staff means that somewhere concessions have to be made. We aim to maintain a balance between scientific output and societal impact. However, without scientific output, maintenance of the expertise of staff members and most importantly securing research funding, societal impact will also quickly diminish. At present, the group has a backlog of research results waiting to be written into journal articles and therefore reduction of workload by streamlining processes, working smarter/more efficiently, appointment of technical staff and less bureaucracy appear to be the way to achieving this balance. 6 Analysis, perspectives and expectations 6.a Earning capacity We have obtained funding from various sources over the past years and currently have a diverse portfolio of longer term (2-4 years) projects. It is particularly pleasing that ANU has obtained funding for the European Erasmus Mundus Master Course. Opportunities exist for ANU to obtain funding in the new EU Horizon 2020 programme and the TopSector funding of the Dutch government. The latter change in funding aims to align government funding for research with industry funding and priorities. 6.b Strategy The Animal Nutrition group has performed very well since the last review and has implemented virtually all the recommendations that were made by the previous peer review committee. The strategy (developed in 2006) which is annually reviewed and modified (if required), is working well. Research funding has increased; especially the prestigious NWO and EU grants and the collaboration with industry have been taken to a new level as evident by the co-financing of projects, MoU with the CVB and secondment of industry staff. Output in terms of scientific publications, number of PhD students and societal impact has also increased again. Although in certain areas significant progress has been made in terms of staff workload (reduction), in other areas workload has increased. Constant attention is required to ensure manageable workloads of staff in relation to the goals set for ANU. Continuous development of research proposals to national and international funding organisations is required. The Centre for Animal Nutrition has been invaluable in achieving the goals and will be essential for future developments in terms of funding, output and workloads. Continuation of leadership of the group at Utrecht University is essential in achieving optimal performance and development of the Centre. 61

62 Animal Nutrition WIAS Midterm Review c SWOT Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Analysis Goals Strategy Dedicated staff and unique (and new) facilities Increased focus on Centres within the Animal Sciences group Strong research focus and research proposal development attitude Very strong associations with international feed companies Very good research output New feed processing and animal facilities High workloads of staff and decreasing time to think Comparatively high costs of animal nutrition research incl. overheads The 3 Centre groups belong to 3 different organisations with their own goals, budgets, rules, aims, etc Predicted increase in demand for animal derived protein Further integration of activities in the Centre for Animal Nutrition EU funding Horizon 2020 Development of an EU feed evaluation system with CVB Further incorporation of omics technologies in nutritional science Yearly increasing overhead costs Increasing bureaucracy Reduced funding for research in the Netherlands Reduced remuneration per student by the University Further development of the Centre for Animal Nutrition is essential Continue implementing the research strategy as developed and annually reviewed Quality of Science is increasingly measured by publications Continue to streamline processes and the focus on core business Ensure that the nutrition group from Lelystad will be co-located with ANU Improve impact of our science further as measured by bibliometric indicators of publications More focus is required on obtaining EU funding Further integration of ANU and the nutrition group of Lelystad Continue as the Head of Nutrition at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Publication in higher impact factor journals 62

63 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Production Systems Animal Production Systems (APS) Head of the Chair group: Prof. Imke de Boer Significant changes Since the previous peer review, internal leadership and the APS mission, research strategy and objectives have changed. Prof. dr. ir. A.J. van der Zijpp, who chaired APS between 2000 and 2010, retired in June From June 2010 until September 2011, Prof. dr. ir. P.W.G. Groot Koerkamp, therefore, interim managed the APS group. During that period, the profile of the APS chair changed and APS was repositioned within the new centre WaCASA, together with the chair groups Plant Production Systems and Organic Farming Systems. WaCASA (Wageningen Centre for Agroecology and Systems Analysis) is a unique research and education initiative within Wageningen UR to develop and apply systems analysis approaches to the urgent and pressing problems facing agricultural systems today. Using concepts of systems analysis, we generate, integrate and educate knowledge to analyse and design sustainable production systems for crops, livestock and their interactions, with focus on resource use efficiency and equitable management of natural resources. Prof. dr. ir. I.J.M. de Boer was actively involved in foundation of WaCASA and started as head of the chair group APS in September The vision, research aims and objectives, described in this document, represent the current situation of APS within WaCASA. 1 Research programme and Reflection The current mission of the chair group is to generate knowledge by unravelling complex livestock systems, and to integrate this knowledge to design a sustainable future. At this moment, decisionmaking regarding sustainable animal production is hindered by the complexity and uncertainty of the impact of innovations on the diverse issues of sustainability. A transparent societal and political debate about future options and limitations of sustainable animal production systems requires a clear understanding of the impact of innovations on the diverse issues of sustainability. The research aim of APS, therefore, is to explore the multi-dimensional, and sometimes conflicting, consequences of (system) innovations in livestock systems across the world (trade-offs and synergies), with a special focus on their impact on the environment (i.e. on efficient use of resources and on emissions to air, water or soil), their impact on animal welfare (i.e. on animal behaviour, animal health) and their impact on the livelihood of people (e.g. on farm income, volatility, employability, and food security). Animal welfare Environment Innovation Livelihood Innovations to be explored can originate from diverse disciplines, such as feeding, breeding or farm technology, but they can also arise from our understanding and generation of knowledge resulting from the integrated system analysis, such as production of milk and meat from grassfed dual purpose breeds. Figure 1. Focus of APS system innovation, and integrated system analysis and design. Focus on livestock value chains A systems approach is vital to unravel complex livestock systems, and to assess multidimensional consequences of systems innovations. Unique for APS is our focus on livestock value chains. 63

64 Animal Production Systems WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Specialization and globalization has disconnected different stages along the livestock value chain, such as feed production; breeding and raising of young stock; production of milk, meat and eggs; product processing and marketing. Focussing on the sustainability potential of innovations at livestock farms only might result in marginal solutions, i.e. solutions that show only a marginal improvement, or pollution swopping, i.e. shifting the reduced impact to other stages along the food chain. The APS group, therefore, significantly invested in development of methodologies to evaluate innovations from a farm and especially chain perspective. Using a combination of bio-economic modelling and life cycle assessment, we, for example, demonstrated that the GHG reduction potential of feeding strategies to reduce methane emission in dairy highly depends on the level of analysis. At animal level, feeding 1 kg additional maize silage at the expense of grass silage reduced GHG emissions by 10.8 kg CO 2 -equivalants per ton FPCM (a reduction of 2.6%), which would lead to the conclusion that this is a useful strategy with an immediate effect on GHG emissions. At farm level, however, analysis revealed that it was not possible to implement the strategy for the average Dutch dairy farm because of current EU regulations. For an intensive farm, however, it was possible to implement the strategy, which resulted in a reduction of annual emissions of 16.1 kg CO 2 -e per ton standardized milk (i.e. 2.3%). The ploughing of grassland for maize land, however, resulted in non-recurrent emissions of 720 kg CO 2 -e per ton milk. From a farm perspective, therefore, the carbon payback time is 45 years. At chain level, annual emission reduction was 17.2 kg CO 2- e per ton milk (i.e. 1.8%), and the carbon payback time was 42 years. Our results show that the potential to reduce GHG emissions by a feeding strategy can be different at the animal, the farm or the chain level, and they demonstrate the importance of an integral evaluation of disciplinary innovations from a chain perspective. Reflection on the previous assessment The recommendations of the previous WIAS assessment were taken into account during the development of the new strategic plan and have been incorporated in the new plan. Specific comments made by the previous review panel were: 1. It is recommended that the group continues to concentrate on world leading multidisciplinary research, including economic and social analysis, with an increase in volume of publications and a deliberate strategy of increasing impact and hence citations. 2. The strategy for the future takes into consideration Dutch government, EU and international preoccupations with greenhouse gas reduction, living with environmental change and balancing these with economic costs and animal welfare. 3. The Peer-Review Committee viewed a report of the Structure Committee on APS. It was felt that the Structure Committee needs to give more definitive advice concerning the future development of APS. There is a need for clarity concerning future strategies. As pointed out in description of the adapted vision and research aims, our current focus is directed exactly at the integrative analysis of system innovations regarding resource use efficiency, emissions to the environment (e.g. greenhouse gases), animal welfare and profitability (see comment 2). We fully realize that development of sustainable animal food chains in the world includes many more aspects than the ones we now focus on in our chair group, such as social embedding, landscape quality or governance. A scientific sound exploration of the impact of system innovations on the environment, animal welfare and profitability along the chain, however, requires a minimum critical mass per issue, justifying our choice for this focus in the years to come. We will build on and expand cooperation with other research groups, with knowledge about social embedding, land scape quality or the role of governance to contribute to a sustainable supply of animal-source food. To increase the volume and quality of our scientific output (see comment 1), we invested in new PhD projects within our new research domain (see section 2). First results of this investment are already visible in 2011, and, we expect to maintain a similar output in the years to come. 64

65 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Production Systems 2 Composition of the Chair group Table 1 presents the number and the research input of tenured staff, non-tenured staff and PhD candidates in the review period, whereas Table 2 gives an overview of the funding of the research input (first, second and third stream). The slight decrease in 2011 reflects the so-far unfulfilled staff position of Imke de Boer, our current head. We succeeded to obtain an NWO programme, including a Post Doc, who started late 2011 (i.e non-tenured staff). The number of PhDs appointed at our group only slightly increased during the review period. In 2012, however, 8 new PhDs started (i.e. 2 regular PhDs; 1 Erasmus Mundus; 3 sandwich PhDs (Nuffic); 2 external PhDs), and 3 additional PhD projects are granted (strategic money university). Table 1: Research input: number of research staff and PhD candidates (incl fte research i (# 1 /fte 2 ) Average Average # fte # fte # fte # fte # fte Tenured staff Non-tenured staff PhD candidates Total number of staff and PhD candidates 2 Available research time in fte 3 all PhD categories, except external PhDs Table 2: Funding research staff and PhD 1,2 candidates in fte Average Average University NWO/KNAW/ERC Contracts Total: Available research time in fte 2 all PhD categories, except external PhDs 3 Research environment and imbedding The APS Chair is embedded in Wageningen Centre for Agroecology and Systems Analysis (WaCASA), a recently founded cluster of three chair groups across science groups, i.e. Plant Production Systems (PPS), Organic Farming Systems (OFS) and Animal Production Systems (APS). WaCASA has a joint strategy for research and shared acquisition initiatives, monthly meetings of staff to exchange research findings and ideas, and regular meetings of the management to plan future collaboration. Furthermore, APS is part of the AAS cluster (Adaptive Animals & Society) within Zodiac, ensuring sound embedding in the animal science department. We also actively cooperate with diverse research groups within Livestock Research, to ensure that our scientific findings are of direct use in more applied research projects (see social impact). 65

66 Animal Production Systems WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Our interdisciplinary nature implies that all our PhD projects include co-supervision with one or two other chairs groups within Wageningen University (e.g. Animal Nutrition, Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology, Farm Technology, Plant Production Systems, Business Economics, Logistics Decision and Information Science, Environmental Economics and Natural Resources, Communication Science) or with research groups within Livestock Research; with a research group within Livestock Research; with a research group within Europe (Teagasc, SIK, Nofima, Matis, Agresearch); with international research organisations (FAO, ILRI) or with international universities (Egerton University). To strengthen our international position, we also invested in hosting young potential PhDs and Post Docs for several months during especially the last 2 years (e.g. PhDs from University of München; University of Milan; CITA Zaragoza; Post Docs from Embrapa Brazil; Gadjah Mada University). With two of these PhDs we are currently exploring funding opportunities for a Post Doc position in our group. 4 Output Table 3 presents the research output per category in the review period, whereas Table 4 shows the productivity per fte of tenured staff. One of the goals of APS is to increase the number of publications of good quality. We, therefore, invested in high quality PhD projects and committed supervision. Publication output and productivity (publications per fte) appeared already higher in 2011 than during previous years, showing first results of this investment. From the academic year 2009/2010 onwards, on average 3 new PhDs have started per year, which is the basis for maintaining this increase in scientific output in the years to come. Table 3: Total research output per category Average Average Academic publications Refereed articles Non-refereed articles Books Refereed book chapters Non-refereed book chapters PhD theses Conference papers Total Publications Professional publications Publications general public Other research output Total Table 4: Productivity per fte tenured staff Average Average Refereed articles Refereed book chapters na Total academic publications PhD theses

67 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Production Systems 5 Scientific quality and Societal relevance 5.a Scientific quality Table 5 and 6 provide results of a bibliometric analysis (Table 5 by year of publication and table 6 by research field). Our average normalized Citation Impact (CI) of 1.88 shows that our publications are cited above the world average in our domain (high values of 2.2 and 2.4 imply a classification of very good ). On average 19% of our publications belong to the top 10% best cited publications in our field (again in 2011 this value is 29%), but also still 19% of our papers remain uncited. The combination of the high average citation value and a relatively high % of papers being uncited, implies that our cited papers have a very high impact. Our aim is to further increase the output of the publications while maintaining their average quality by decreasing the % of uncited papers. The group has two staff members that participate in the editorial board of international journals, (including Agricultural Systems, the top-1 journal for system s research in 2011, Small Ruminant Research and Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science), and one staff members that is editor of Animal. Table 5: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per publication year. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Year of publication N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 (T10) (T1) %NC (NC) % (2) 0% (0) 8% (1) % (1) 0% (0) 25% (2) % (2) 0% (0) 29% (2) % (5) 0% (0) 19% (5) % (7) 0% (0) 10% (8) Table 6: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per research field. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Research Field N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 (T10) (T1) %NC (NC) Agricultural Sciences % (1) 0% (0) 17% (1) Biology & Biochemistry % (1) 0% (0) 0% (0) Economics & Business % (1) 0% (0) 0% (0) Environment/Ecology % (1) 0% (0) 0% (0) Plant & Animal Science % (1) 0% (0) 27% (4) Social Sciences, general % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) All research fields % (5) 0% (0) 19% (5) Below please find recent key publications of our research group De Vries, M. and I.J.M. de Boer Comparing environmental impacts for livestock products: a review of life cycle assessments. Livestock Science 128: (Most downloaded publication from Livestock Science in 2011, current citations 22). De Boer, I.J.M., I.E. Hoving, T.V. Vellinga, G.W.J. van de Ven, P.A. Leffelaar and P.J. Gerber Assessing environmental impacts associated with freshwater consumptions along the life cycle of animal products the case of Dutch milk production in Noord-Brabant. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment doi /s Webb, L.E., Bokkers, E.A.M., Engel, B., Gerrits, W.J.J., Berends, H. and C.G. van Reenen Behaviour and welfare of veal calves fed different amounts of solid feed supplemented to a milk replacer ration adjusted for similar growth. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 136,

68 Animal Production Systems WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Udo, H.M.J., Aklilu, H.A., Phong, L.T., Bosma, R.H., Budisatria, I.G.S., Patil B.R., Samdup, T., B.O. Bebe Impact of intensification of different types of livestock production in smallholder croplivestock systems. Livestock Science 139: Oosting, S.J., A. Mekoya, S. Fernandez-Rivera and A.J. van der Zijpp, Sesbania sesban as a fodder tree in Ethiopian livestock farming systems. Feeding practices and farmers' perception of feeding effects on sheep performance. Livestock Science 139: b Societal relevance Activities Our research generates knowledge that enhances a transparent societal and political debate about future options and limitations of sustainable animal production across the world, and yields tools and insights that can be and are used by the industry or retailers to improve the sustainability of their products, or by governments of institutions like the FAO and ILRI to evaluate scenarios for sustainable development. In cooperation with Livestock Research, for example, we contributed to the development of a carbon footprint tool (Feedprint) that will used by feeding companies (Nutreco, Agrifirm etc) to explore strategies that reduce emission of greenhouse gases along the chain. In collaboration with Friesland Campina, for example, we explored the potential of the current Welfare Quality Protocol to monitor welfare on Dutch dairy cattle farms, a key issue for Friesland Campina for their future milk supply. Hence, our work and research contributes to the growing interest from the animal industry and the retail to incorporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability in their activities. One important societal impact is the involvement of Prof. Imke de Boer and one of her recently graduated PhD s, i.e. dr.ir. Sanne Dekker, in The Sustainability Consortium ( consortium.com), a global initiative to develop science-based metrics to assess sustainability for a variety of commodities, including agricultural products. Our cooperation with the FAO is visible by involvement of Prof Imke de Boer as an expert in global assessment studies of GHG emissions in livestock production performed by the FAO. Moreover, we are currently exploring the appointment of an extraordinary professor of the FAO at our group focussing on Resource use efficiency in livestock systems a global perspective. Our cooperation with ILRI is established via several joint PhD projects in the past, and one running PhD. Additionally, we also contribute to capacity building via education of MSc and PhD students, which is especially relevant for developing countries. Our current MSc and PhDs originate for about 50% from abroad, varying from EU countries, African countries to Asian countries. Co-financing The societal relevance of our research is also acknowledged by the fact that recent PhD projects are partially funded by private companies (The Animal Health Service, CRV, Agrifirm, the Veal calf industry), by product boards (PVE), by the European Union (WHITEFISH project, total funding APS 700 k ), and international organizations like FAO (50 k for a PhD) or ILRI (co-financing PhD projects), but also, for example, by Nuffic (partly aiming at capacity building). Reflection As described in this Mid-term review, we started in our new setting and with our new, more focussed research vision and objectives in 2011, and, therefore, we can t reflect yet on our previous performance. Above mentioned results, however, clearly demonstrate the societal importance of a chair group focussing on future options and limitations of sustainable animal production across the world. 68

69 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Animal Production Systems 6 Analysis, perspectives and expectations 6.a Earning capacity In this review period, we were successful in our PhD and Post Doc acquisition. In total, 9 PhDs and 1 Post Doc started (on average 3 per year). Funding of these projects originate from NWO (20%), EL&I/DGIS (20%), industry (5%), Nuffic/WOTRO (30%), FAO (5%) and strategic funds from Wageningen UR (20%). 6.b Strategy Sustainable growth In 2010 and 2011 we managed to increase the number of PhD projects, while maintaining our educational activities. Our current aim is two-fold. First, we aim at implementation of our newly developed strategy. Second we aim at increasing the number of Post Docs on longer term contracts (3-4 years) in order to increase our capacity to supervise PhD students, to offer high potential PhD graduates an opportunity to continue their scientific career, and to attract young potentials from elsewhere. We will also invest in intensifying and expanding our collaboration with national and international institutes to strengthen the (inter)national embedding of our systems research. 6.c SWOT Strengths Strong international position in the field of life cycle assessment and livestock production; Unique combination of expertise in the field of environmental impact assessment and animal welfare assessment, i.e. an important major trade-off area in development of sustainable livestock systems. Unique combination of expertise in the field of environmental impact assessment and livelihood assessment in tropical livestock systems. Weaknesses Sourcing of high potential tenured staff. Dependency of staff on revenues from education. Lack of appropriate incentives and institutional settings to reward additional efforts of integrative research Opportunities Interest in life cycle sustainability assessment is increasing significantly, moreover due to initiatives such as The Sustainability Consortium. Recent cooperation in research with industry. Recent embedding in WaCASA offers potential for common research projects (first common PhD starts end 2012). Potential to strengthen cooperation with FAO/ILRI. Threats Work load of current tenured staff due to excessive growth of PhD projects. Analysis A refocus of research activities has been effectuated in 2011, and is currently being implemented. Goals Recently adjusted with start of new head. Strategy Implement the developed strategy. Maintain current increase in volume and quality of scientific output. Focus on an increase of tenured staff/post Doc positions. Strengthen international embedding (FAO, ILRI, EU). 69

70 Animal Production Systems WIAS Midterm Review

71 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Aquaculture and Fisheries Aquaculture and Fisheries (AFI) Head of the Chair group: Prof. Johan Verreth 1 Research programme and Reflection AFI studies the resilience of aquatic organisms and systems in an environment dominated by changing production goals, environmental (ecosystem) conditions and changing human needs. It has the ambition to use this knowledge to contribute to the sustainability of our seafood and the aquatic and marine environments where these organisms are living in. To realize these ambitions, AFI works at different integration levels, combining physiological research at animal level with ecological and technical research at the level of the living environment of the animal, e.g, water and (eco)system. It avails over a range of (disciplinary) expertises, ranging from fish nutrition and physiology, water quality management and aquacultural engineering to fish and fisheries ecology and fisheries management. It usually deploys these expertises in multi- or interdisciplinary collaborative programmes focusing on societal questions or issues regarding aquaculture and/or fisheries. The motivation for the assessment in 2009 was quite brief and the following recommendations were given: a) The Committee cautions the Group to carefully define its comparative advantage and to narrow the scope of research in this domain towards coastal aquaculture Internationally we are not regarded as experts in coastal aquaculture (read: shrimp farming) and what we do on shellfish (read: mussel) farming is entirely based on the Special Chair and his team s work at Wageningen IMARES. So we believe that the recommendation did not fully recognize the strengths of our group. Yet we have invested in the area of coastal aquaculture taking into account where our strengths are in that area: that is on the environmental and social embedding and resilience of coastal aquaculture in the wider context of coastal zone management. The INREF- Rescopar (abbreviation for: Resilience in coastal populations and aquatic resources) focuses on the resilience aspects in both the human and aquatic (fish and shrimp) communities in mangrove based coastal areas in Indonesia and Vietnam. The PhD students in this program are now at the final stage of their study and will defend their theses in 2012 and b) encourages the Group to use all possibilities to increase staffing and funding through expanding contacts especially with the feed and food industry. We have strongly invested in our contacts with the industry. Actually, we consider our approach of working wherever possible in combination with NGO s, governmental institutes ánd industry, as a characteristic of AFI s way of working. That goes beyond the narrow limits of the feed and food industry. As an example, our project SuPa (Sustainable Pangasius) should be mentioned where we work on sustainability issues of the Pangasius farming sector in Vietnam, in close collaboration with both the governments of Vietnam and Netherlands, with local research institutes, with NGOs such as WWF, and with a cluster of companies in the value chain of Pangasius: from the feed industry, to farms, processors and importing companies in Europe (the cluster contains market leader such as Provimi, de Heus, Vinh Hoan, Marine Harvest a.o.). A similar approach is currently being developed for our BestTuna project (Tuna fisheries) that is right now (2012) starting. However, we have particularly followed the recommendation of the peer review committee as follows: Based on our continuing publications on the nutritional physiology and feed intake in fish, we are currently recognized as world leaders in the domain of tilapia and catfish nutrition. The three world leading fish feed manufacturing companies, Nutreco/Skretting, Ewos and Biomar all contacted us for this purpose and invited us to collaborate. Biomar is currently funding a research project on alternative ingredients for fishmeal in tilapia diets, Skretting seconded a senior staff member to AFI for developing a joint program on the relation between feeds, 71

72 Aquaculture and Fisheries WIAS Midterm Review 2012 nutrition and health in tilapia and catfish. Provimi and de Heus are supporting our project on Pangasius in Vietnam, obviously with a particular focus on pangasius feeds. Royal Ahold (a supermarket giant, with main market positions in Netherlands, Scandinavia, USA and Baltic countries) contracted us for advise and consultancy on their Corporate Sustainable Seafood Program. We did a benchmark study on different ecolabels and certification programs for sustainable seafood. This study has attracted international attention, ranging from industry, to NGOs and FAO. Partly based on this study, the industry sector is now taking up a new initiative GSSI, (Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative), which may have significant impacts on the the seafood producing industry through the requirements for sustainability that will be imposed. Next to this, the assessment on itself was clear: AFI scored a 4 for its scientific quality and vitality, but reached only a score of 3.5 for its productivity and relevance of the work. Therefore, we took the following actions to improve the latter results: Productivity Two main lines of actions were taken with the aim to (a) increase the absolute productivity in the relevant category (numbers of peer reviewed publications per senior fte) and (b) to improve the crown index in our performance parameters. First, we spent much efforts in enlarging our group of PhD students because in the end, that will strongly contribute to our productivity and number of publications in ISI journals. Next, a self-analysis of our performance data of the 2009 peer review showed a top 4 ranking within WIAS for the total number of publications and PhD theses, but not for the number of papers in ISI journals. Apparently, we spent a relative large part of our efforts for publications as book chapters, FAO Technical papers and others. Since end 2009, our focus is entirely on publications in peer reviewed (ISI) journals, preferably with a high impact factor. For this end, the ISI category of Fisheries journals were analysed, and a target was set to publish at least 25% of our papers in the top quartile of this list, and to avoid publications in journals belonging to the lower half of this list. Obviously, this means also a relative shift from more applied research questions to more fundamental, academic research questions. We are aware of the potential risks this entails for our relevance and science for impact, and took parallel measures to avoid problems on those indicators (see further). Relevance The challenge was to balance high quality academic work with questions in society and industry in a way that our work was perceived as important for those questions. Against the background of a highly fragmented sector (divided over species and over geographic areas), this was and is not easy. We decided to be with our research, where it matters by searching actively collaboration with toplevel groups in our domain, by searching actively key-positions in European or World professional organizations, and/or by searching actively contact with the industry but always working from our own strong assets and expertise. This approach brought us in high profiling exploited systems such as Lake Victoria, the pacific Tuna fisheries, Asian coastal zones which are strongly influenced by the exploding shrimp farming, and yielded us a strong profile in the nutrition of freshwater fish such as tilapia and catfish. Industry does find us nowadays, seconds staff and/or commissions research; we collaborate in large EU projects, and initiated similarly large programmes on coastal zone resilience and tuna fisheries together with WWF, Regional Fisheries Management Organizations and industry organisations. Also in our education we are internationally visible and were commissioned by NUFFIC to lead a large consortium for including climate change impacts on aquaculture, horticulture and forestry in the curricula of 3 Vietnamese universities and currently we are invited to submit a similar proposal for the Bangladesh university world. In all these large activities, we avoid to be trapped in a too large range of activities and expertise, and contribute (beside general scientific coordination) only our own experience on animal-environment interactions and resilience of the exploited animal, population or ecosystem. The broadness is secured by collaboration with specialized teams on those areas. 72

73 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Aquaculture and Fisheries Vitality and Feasibility Wageningen University established a new Masters in Aquaculture and Marine Resources Management in This MSc programme attracts an increasing number of students, and grew from about 15 to 35 new entrants per year. AFI is the main contributor to the teaching program of this MSc. Both, the increased number of PhD students and MSc students provide a sound basis for the future funding of our group. Scientific quality Since the last peer review, our strategy to go for more fundamental and strategic research has paid off by publications in journals of relative high impact for our domain (e.g., PLOS One, Journal of British Nutrition, Coral Reefs, a.o.). 2 Composition of the Chair group Table 1 presents the number and the research input of tenured staff, non-tenured staff and PhD candidates in the review period. The number of tenured staff is quite stable, which is a consequence of the relative uniform age group(45-55 yrs) of its senior staff. Compared to the last measuring moment in 2008, the number of tenured staff slightly decreased from 2.0 in 2008 to 1.7 in The research input of non-tenured staff also remained fluctuating around 3 to 5 persons, depending on the project portfolio. However in contrast to the above, the number of PhD students showed a clear increase in the 3years period since the last peer review, and is also much higher than in any of the former peer review periods. This is related to a combination of two factors: (a)the increased linkage with Wageningen IMARES and two Special Chairs from this institute working at AFI pays off in terms of PhD students seconded to IMARES; (b)the clear policy since 2009 to invest in enlarging our PhD student group. Table 2 gives an overview of the funding of the research input (first, second and third stream). The figures show a slight decrease in funding from the university and NWO, while contract research funding shows a slight increase between 2009 and AFI has a relative large number of (overseas) PhD students funded by grants of their governments or other funding, which may not be accounted in the figures given in Table 2. Table 1: Research input: number of research staff and PhD candidates (incl fte research i (# 1 /fte 2 ) Average Average # fte # fte # fte # fte # fte Tenured staff Non-tenured staff PhD candidates Total number of staff and PhD candidates 2 Available research time in fte. 3 all PhD categories, except external PhDs Table 2: Funding research staff and PhD 1,2 candidates in fte Average Average University NWO/KNAW/ERC Contracts Total: Available research time in fte. 2 all PhD categories, except external PhDs 73

74 Aquaculture and Fisheries WIAS Midterm Review Research environment and imbedding AFI has few collaborations with ASG institutes, but has strong linkages with Wageningen IMARES which are also continuously increasing, upon recommendations of the mid-term peer review of WIAS in Wageningen IMARES is the primary and natural DLO partner for AFI. In 2010, Wageningen Aquaculture was established as a DDW-DLO expertise centre. The centre has a management team consisting of Verreth, van der Mheen (division leader Aquaculture at Imares) and Rothuis (acting as the executive secretary of the Centre), which meets monthly. The centre organizes joint workshops, exchange of students and tries to synchronize its national and international acquisition of projects. AFI supports the international ambitions in Asia and Africa of Imares, and Imares supports our ambitions within Europe, where traditionally, they have a stronger project portfolio. A similar expertise centre in the area of fisheries is not logic, because of the strong imbalance in size between AFI (2 seniors) and Imares divisions ecology, fish, and/or fisheries. However the AFI subteam of fisheries is quite complementary to the expertises available at Imares and a further intensification of the collaboration is searched via temporary secondments in both directions. The strong linkage between AFI and Imares is further institutionalized via Special Chairs for 2 Imares seniors: prof. Rijnsdorp occupies the Special Chair at AFI for Sustainable Fisheries, with a particular focus on the North Atlantic Region, and prof. Smaal has the Special Chair at AFI for Sustainable Shellfish Farming. Both professors have attracted several PhD students who work at Imares under their supervision. Via these 2 Special Chairs, AFI s orientation to ecosystem based approaches and marine resources management has grown dramatically. The leadership of prof. Rijnsdorp and via him the linkage to the strong Imares teams on fisheries and fish ecology provide the proper scientific embedding of our small AFI subteam in this area, avoiding the apparent risk of lack of critical mass if they would operate alone. Within the Department of Animal Sciences, AFI is part of the cluster Adaptive Animals and Systems (together with ADP, APS and BHE). This cluster offers a natural scientific environment for AFI since it links animal responses to their living environment (thus rearing systems), generating knowledge on how to design or adjust these systems to the requirements of the animal. This is also the core business of AFI and how AFI is being composed and operates. The added value of this cluster needs still to be developed, because AFI s focus on aquatic animals and systems combines with the livestock animals and systems of the other groups only when the cluster can invest on the underlying scientific concepts. Within WU, we collaborate with groups that have complementary expertise required for researching the sustainability issues that are brought to us via program calls or via governmental or intergovernmental organizations. In the broad domain of fisheries and marine/aquatic sciences, there is a huge need for management solutions, which combine proper technical innovations with the response of the society and ecosystem populations where they are designed for. That is why we have invested a lot in interdisciplinary research programmes together with experts from social sciences (sociologists, marine governance experts, environmental economics, etcetera). All our fisheries projects, and many aquaculture projects have an interdisciplinary approach and are carried out in collaboration with social scientists, whereby we contribute with our technical knowledge of the aquatic/marine ecosystem, of the animals and their adaptive responses to changes in those environments, and of the technical design criteria to engineer and adjust the production ecosystem to the new needs of both animal and society. Internationally we have specifically invested in a strong collaborative linkage with INRA, with a particular focus for our organism based work on fish nutrition and physiology. The number one team in Europe in this area is the INRA fish nutrition team working at the Pole d Hydrobiologie at St-Pée sur Nivelle (near Biarritz). Via the INRA-WUR Platform for Aquaculture, AFI attracted 2 PhDs and 2 Postdocs in the area of fish nutrition and physiology, and it provides AFI access to the integrative genomic approaches in this field which is well developed at INRA. By doing so, we have been able to balance the growth at the population and ecosystem levels via our collaboration within Wageningen, with a similar growth and enforcement at the organism level. This approach pays off. 74

75 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Aquaculture and Fisheries In 2010 and 2011, the major fish feed manufacturing companies (Nutreco, Ewos, Biomar), all contacted us and invited us for collaboration. We have a strong contract research program with Biomar; Nutreco seconded a senior scientist to AFI to develop a joint program on the interaction between nutrition and fish health. 4 Output Table 3 presents the research output per category in the review period. The data reflect our policy established in 2009 to focus on peer reviewed papers. The average number of refereed articles has increased, particularly in 2011, in a year when we had no PhD defences. The number of PhD theses decreased to a low of zero in This is explained by the cyclic fluctuations in our PhD student population which reflect the cohort composition of the student group, coinciding with the acquisition of some major projects through which several PhDs were recruited (e.g., INREF programmes, IPOP etc.). In 2012, we will have 3 PhD theses again and from 2014 onwards, the annual number of PhD defences will be back at the level 4-6 per year. Given the composition of the current PhD student population, we expect to break this cyclic rhythm of strong and poor years and move to a more stable in/out system of PhD students. Table 4 shows the productivity per fte tenured staff. It shows the same trend as Table 3. Although the number of total academic publications remains more or less similar to the period as reported for the peer review in 2009, the output of refereed articles per fte research input has increased strongly while the number of other papers decreased. This is again a clear result of our policy established in follow up of the previous peer review. Table 3: Total research output per category Average Average Academic Publications Refereed articles Non-refereed articles Books Refereed book chapters Non-refereed book chapters PhD theses Conference papers Total Publications Professional publications Publications general public Other research output Total Table 4: Productivity per fte tenured staff Average Average Refereed articles Refereed book chapters na Total academic publications PhD theses

76 Aquaculture and Fisheries WIAS Midterm Review Scientific quality and Societal relevance 5.a Scientific quality The results of the bibliometric analysis are shown (ranked by year) in Table 5 and ranked by research field in Table 6. Compared to the period , the Crown Index increased from 1.03 to This increase is not caused by a coincidental year, but reflects a steady growth as can be seen from the years 2009, 2010 and We are quite pleased to see that our investments in productivity and our policy regarding publication strategy, is paying off in a substantial increase of the perceived quality of our work. Table 6 shows that AFI publishes mainly in two areas: the vast majority of our work and publications fits in the area of Plant and Animal Sciences (64 out of 84 papers) and Environment/Ecology (12 papers), a 5:1 ratio. The Crown Index of the work at the Environment/Ecology field is slightly above the world average. We are pleased to see that also in this research field a positive growth from an average of 0.81 for the period to the current 1.16 has been achieved. Yet, in this field, the results remain within confidence limits of world average. The positive quality results for AFI are related to our main body of work in Plant and Animal Sciences which reaches a CI of Table 5: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per publication year. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Year of publication N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 %NC (T10) (T1) (NC) % (3) 0% (0) 13% (4) % (3) 4% (1) 15% (4) % (6) 0% (0) 19% (5) % (12) 1% (1) 15% (13) % (16) 0% (0) 8% (12) Table 6: Overview of the bibliometric indicators of publications ( ) broken down per research field. An explanation of the bibliometric analysis can be found on page 9. Research Field N C Wavg CPP CI RI %T10 %T1 %NC (T10) (T1) (NC) Agricultural Sciences % (0) 0% (0) 25% (1) Biology & Biochemistry % (0) 0% (0) 100% (1) Clinical Medicine % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Engineering % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Environment/Ecology % (5) 0% (0) 8% (1) Molecular Biology & Genetics % (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) Plant & Animal Science % (7) 2% (1) 16% (10) All research fields % (12) 1% (1) 15% (13) Here under, we list 5 key publications of the Chair group in period van de Wolfshaar, K., Middelkoop, H., Addink, E., Winter, H. V. & L. A. J. Nagelkerke (2011). Linking flow regime, floodplain lake connectivity and fish catch in a large river-floodplain system, the Volga Akhtuba floodplain (Russian Federation). Ecosystems 14: DOI: /s S.R. Bush, P.A.M. van Zwieten, L. Visser, H. van Dijk, R. Bosma, W.F. de Boer and M. Verdegem Scenarios for resilient shrimp aquaculture in tropical coastal areas. Ecology and Society 15 (2): Tim Wijgerde, Rara Diantari, Muhammad Wahyudin Lewaru, Johan A. J. Verreth and Ronald Osinga Extracoelenteric zooplankton feeding is a key mechanism of nutrient acquisition for the scleractinian coral Galaxea fasciculari. Journal Experimental Biology 214:

77 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Aquaculture and Fisheries 4. C.I.M. Martins, E.H. Eding, M.C.J. Verdegem, L.T.N. Heinsbroek, O. Schneider, J.P. Blancheton, E. Roque d Orbcastel and J.A.J. Verreth New developments in recirculating aquaculture systems in Europe: A perspective on environmental sustainability. Aquaculture Engineering 43 (3): J. W. Schrama, S. Saravanan, I. Geurden, L. T. N. Heinsbroek, S. J. Kaushik and J. A. J. Verreth, Dietary nutrient composition affects digestible energy utilisation for growth: a study on Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and a literature comparison across fish species. British Journal of Nutrition, 108: doi: /s b Societal relevance AFI has a track record of interacting with non-academic stakeholders in society who are interested in input from our research. We have done this always and are still doing so at all levels of our research. With regard to fisheries ecology, we have regular contacts with the Netherlands Sport Fishing Organization, who represents all angling societies in the Netherlands, which on their turn are legally the owners of fishing rights and responsible for fish stock management in Dutch public waters. We are member of STOWA (Foundation for Research on Applied Water Management), an organization that groups the Water Authorities, consultancy companies ánd academia in the field. Most of our overseas international research projects have a Stakeholder Board or have annual Stakeholder meetings in the area to consult all stakeholders (particularly the non-academic ones) about our research plans and to report on our research results. This counts for SEDEC (our Lake Victoria project) where we have regular meetings with the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization, responsible for the fisheries management in the entire lake; for INREF RESCOPAR where we have annual stakeholders meetings both in Vietnam and in Kalimantan (Indonesia), co-organized by our local counterparts; for SuPa (see earlier) and for INREF BestTuna, where we consulted both during the writing phase of the project as at the kick-off in Indonesia, all stakeholders: from NGOs such as WWF, to governmental organizations in the Philippines, Indonesia, the PNA countries, industry ( ) and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations such as the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), etcetera. Developing our research questions in close collaboration with industry and stakeholders is a policy target of AFI: we have the ambition to do high level academic research but it must have always impact and should never deviate far away from the needs from the sector. We consider ourselves as primary responsible to guarantee the scientific quality, but installed this policy to safeguard ourselves from decoupling from our work field. Academically most of our work focus on the resilience of aquatic organisms and systems in an environment dominated by changing production goals, environmental (ecosystem) conditions and changing human needs. As such it contributes to the understanding of how seafood can be produced sustainably. Precisely in this field we are increasingly consulted and invited to collaborate (see the mentioned interactions with Royal Ahold). International Seafood Exhibitions and Conferences (ranging from Brussels Seafood, the world largest in its field to a local Sustainable Seafood Symposium at St Andrews, New Brunswick, where Verreth was asked as keynote speaker) do find their way to contact us and invite us to participate in one or more of their workshops they organize during their events. 6 Analysis, perspectives and expectations 6.a Earning capacity AFI has been quite successful in acquiring funds for research in WUR competitive programmes (such as IPOP and INREF programmes), and in (inter)national competitive programmes such as EU FP7 calls, development cooperation funds from the Dutch government (e.g, Ministry EL&I and Agentschap.NL, Nuffic) and via self-initiated public-private partnerships (such as SuPa, Sustainable Pangasius, funded by the governments of the Netherlands, Vietnam and a consortium of Dutch and Vietnamese companies working in the pangasius industry). We established also strong linkages with WWF, who organized together with us (and the Chair group Environmental Policy), a brainstorming event on the tuna fisheries in the Central Pacific Region, an area of high importance also for coral reef biodiversity and conservation. 77

78 Aquaculture and Fisheries WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Using the outcomes of this Tuna Think Tank, (see also: where_we_work/coraltriangle/events/tunathinktank/). ENP and AFI together developed and proposed a program for research on alternative management strategies for the tuna fisheries in that area which came out as first in the 2011 round of INREF, with 10 PhD positions and 2 postdoc positions. AFI initiated this linkage to WWF, is sharing the leadership of the BESTTuna project, and is also further turning this program into a real PPP structure with involvement of industry and other stakeholders. Our consistent focus on sustainability issues in both fisheries and aquaculture brought us also in close collaboration with Royal Ahold, the Dutch supermarket concern with market leadership in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and important market positions in USA. Ahold contracted us for advise and consultancy on their Corporate Sustainable Seafood Program, which is now being upgraded to an international and industry led initiative, called GSSI, (Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative). We did a benchmark study on different ecolabels and certification programs for sustainable seafood. This study has attracted international attention, ranging from industry, to NGOs and FAO. 6.b Strategy See Swot analysis. 6.c SWOT Strengths Diversity of disciplines, combining physiological and ecological approaches Integrative approach over all levels from organism to fish communities Unique research facilities Interaction with industry, NGOs and governmental institutions Present in important sectors for food security and trade Strong integration of research with teaching and education Very international in profile, activities and student population Weaknesses International profile leads to small number of PhDs based in Wageningen Opportunities The domain of AFI ( fish, marine ) is strongly growing, both for research and education demands. Attractive new MSc combining aquaculture with marine resources management and interdisciplinary approaches for governance Strong linkages with both IMARES (within WUR) and INRA (Europe) Threats Potential collapse of fisheries and aquaculture industry in Netherlands reduces interest for funding Change in immigration policy and changing governmental policy regarding university funding affects market for msc and phd students. This is particularly threating AFI because of its large influx of overseas students A growing load of administrative tasks keep staff away from primary tasks Analysis Publication and research strategy works and is effective Our strategy on pro-active linking to stakeholder groups is working The ratio of sandwich to WU residing PhD student is unbalanced Goals Maintain research and publication strategy Attract talents and focus on WU residing PhD students Deepen the collaborations within WUR, with Imares first, within the Cluster Adaptive Animals and Systems; internationally with top-leading institutes Develop a world leading position in our core fields (freshwater &warmwater fish such as tilapia/catfish/eel) in close collaboration with industry Strategy Collaboration with top teams Searching staff mobility and integration with Imares Enacting on policy for searching strong interaction with work field 78

79 WIAS Midterm Review 2012 Behavioural Ecology Behavioural Ecology (BHE) Head of the Chair group: Prof. Marc Naguib 1 Research programme and Reflection The aim of the Behavioural Ecology Group is to answer questions on the causes and consequences of behavioural traits and strategies and to determine their implications especially in social contexts. By applying our expertise in animal behaviour to different study systems - wild animals, farm animals and companion animals - we occupy a unique niche where our research and education benefits from integrating knowledge from these approaches. Our expertise in both behavioural ecology and applied animal behaviour ideally complements each other leading to cross-pollination and knowledge transfer between these fields. The main expertise and research focus of the BHE- group is on social behaviour, involving a range of projects that specifically address the causes as well the consequences of key aspects of social behaviour. This includes research on early developmental- and maternal effects on behaviour, family conflicts, communication, cognition and social networks using wild and captive animals as model species. With this expertise we are in an ideal situation to integrate research on behavioural ecology of wild animals, with research on farm and companion animals. Our expertise in each of these fields allows crosspollination across traditionally separated fields. We can, for instance, take a behavioural ecology approach to study welfare related issues in farm animals and use insights on behavioural mechanisms obtained in farm animal research to refine studies in behavioural ecology, which traditionally takes a more functional approach. The specific research lines in our group focus on (1) behavioural ecology of songbirds to reveal behavioural principles in the wild and to determine how selection may act on them (family conflicts, communication, territorial behaviour, mate choice, cognition and social networks) (2) behaviour of farm animals (poultry, feather pecking, behavioural development, cognition, social networks) to determine causes and consequences of behaviour that is adaptive or mal-adaptive and thus of welfare relevance (3) behaviour of dogs as companion animals (aggressive behaviour and owner-dog interactions). A central theme in all three lines is to identify causes and consequences of individual variation and of consistency in behaviour (animal personality) allowing us to capture and explain variation in behaviour. These individual strategies are highly relevant to understand within population diversity and how selection acts on this. This approach is also used to assess welfare questions, which warrants a range of solutions to comply with needs by individuals differing in personality and copying styles. To stimulate transfer of knowledge from behavioural ecology to applied animal behaviour science, and vice-versa, we currently follow plans to include quail in our research as they are an established model in behavioural ecology and also allow studying behaviour that is relevant in husbandry systems. Overall, we conduct fundamental as well as applied research on adaptations of animals to their environment. 2 Composition of the Chair group The chair group was established in December 2011 and is still growing. In July 2012 (Dr. Camilla Hinde from Oxford, GB) and August 2012 (Dr. Bas Rodenburg, WUR) were appointed as tenure track Assistant professors. Other existing staff members are part time. We have one externally funded PhD student (NWO) and are supervising or co-supervising two other students who are formally based at ADP (Elske de Haas and Inonge Reimert). 79