The way we eat has a major impact on the environment and climate. Food production - including transport and storage - still consumes enormous amounts of water, energy and raw materials. However, the trend in food purchasing is moving toward sustainability. Regional and plant-based products are particularly in demand. Food innovations such as insect burgers or algae pasta are entering the market and showing how food production can become more environmentally friendly and sustainable in the future. 

In April of this year, the Leibniz Association's Executive Committee nominated Martina Brockmeier as a candidate for the presidency. Now the assembled members have cast their vote: With a large majority, the agricultural economist from Stuttgart was elected as the new president of the renowned research organisation on 18 November. From 1 July 2022, Brockmeier will officially assume the office for 4 years. With Barbara Sturm, the members elected another agricultural expert to head the Leibniz Association.

The prize money of 300 euros is rather symbolic, but attention is guaranteed: Kykeon Biotech won the "Founders' Pitch" of the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) on November 10, 2021. The young team convinced the twelve investors and more than 120 online viewers with its process for the cell-free production of artificial proteins. They had to share the audience award with 'Inflatable Lunar Habitat', a project that designed a portable and inflatable research tent for use on the moon.

Growing even though nutrients are scarce - in shallow coastal regions of temperate and tropical seas, seagrass faces precisely this challenge. For most of the year, there is no nitrogen in a form that the aquatic plant can utilize. Only elemental nitrogen is abundant in the sea, but seagrass cannot absorb it. Until now, it was therefore assumed that bacteria in the environment convert this nitrogen and thus provide nutrients for the neighboring plant.

Electrical appliances contain many valuable raw materials - but these are often lost at the end of the product cycle: The proportion of recycled raw materials in total production was 40% in Germany in 2016. In the "Circular by Design" project, researchers have now identified optimization opportunities using refrigerators and freezers as an example. The large-scale trial was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with around 800,000 euros.

Elastomers make up a large proportion of plastics. Although some of them are based on natural rubber, there is still potential for optimizing the raw materials in terms of sustainability. The Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF now wants to exploit this potential by developing new formulations. In addition to biobased raw materials, residual materials are also to be used. Both replace materials that were previously produced from petroleum.

The National Research Data Infrastructure for Microbiota Research (NFDI4Microbiota) aims to structure microbiology data and thus make it more accessible. This is intended to help research teams leverage the data and organize their own data so that it is accessible to other research groups. The project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to an annual tune of 85 million euros, aims to support up to 30 consortia over five years to pave the way for better data management nationwide.

For researchers, plant characteristics such as growth height, seed size, photosynthetic performance or flower color are crucial factors in finding out how plants adapt to their environment or how they can respond to future climatic changes. However, it it is not only the appearance of a plant that is crucial for its development, but also the invisible part - the root system. So what does the appearance of the plant reveal about the roots? Is there a connection between the upper and lower features?

Contributing to the idea of a circular bioeconomy, the Hamburg-based start-up traceless materials has developed a bio-based material that leaves no trace in the environment but is compostable and can therefore be disposed of in organic waste. The young company is now receiving a grant of 2.4 million euros from the European Innovation Council (EIC) to further develop its technology.