Climate change, water and resource scarcity, soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, but also population growth and food waste are putting the current food system under severe pressure across Europe. Sustainable food and nutrition security is therefore one of the major challenges of the future.
Engineer Felix Lenk is the founder and Managing Director of SmartLab Solutions GmbH. The spin-off from Dresden University of Technology develops hardware and IT solutions for the digitalised and automated laboratory of the future. These include the ‘Sens-o-Spheres’, a mobile measuring system the size of a pea that records important process parameters such as temperature in the culture medium of a bioreactor and transmits them to a base station.
As an industry-oriented research institution, Jena-based INNOVENT has been working closely with companies for many years and supports them with specialist and technical expertise from product development to market launch. One focus is research into innovative and sustainable products and processes for the bioeconomy. Expanding the range of bio-based materials and making them usable is the focus of Ronja Breitkopf's ‘Biomaterials’ research group.
Moors are not only unique habitats for animals and plants. They bind large amounts of climate-damaging CO2 and therefore make an important contribution to climate and environmental protection.
Although they only cover around 3% of the earth's surface, peatlands play a crucial role in climate protection, as they bind almost twice as much carbon as all of the world's forests combined.
As a result of global warming, crops such as barley not only have to contend with increasing drought, but also with infestation by fungi, which multiply particularly well in warm conditions.
Many fish species such as salmon and trout are now bred in aquaculture facilities to meet the increasing demand. As a rule, these fish farms are located near the coast, where breeding is impaired by shipping, tourism or buildings.