New IDE research projects funded by NWO

News - 13 February 2020 - Communication

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO in Dutch) has announced that their NWO call on Transitions and behaviour has awarded funding to three projects involving IDE staff. The call focused specifically on research into behaviour and behavioural change that makes transitions possible and accelerates these.

NWO emphasises striking a balance between technological and human-centered solutions in this call: “As a society, we face a large number of challenges in areas such as mobility, climate change, healthcare and sustainable energy. In tackling these challenges, it is important to strike a balance between technology and society.”

The projects with significant involvement of IDE are:

Enduring Rewards: Maintaining a lifestyle change by eHealth-supported dynamic personalized incentives
Project lead: Dr Valentijn Visch (TU Delft)
Project partners: TU Delft, Universiteit Leiden, NIPED Prevention BV, Innovattic, Leiden University Medical Center (department Clinical Health Cardiology), Gemeente Rotterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam Medical Center (department Public Health)

A healthy lifestyle rewards you with a long and healthy life, but is often hard to maintain. This project researches several reward mechanisms that can support a healthy lifestyle. Researchers will collaborate with people struggling to stay healthy, designers, psychologists, hospitals, municipalities and e-health- and game developers.

Food Waste: from Excess to Enough
Project lead: Dr Erica van Herpen (Wageningen UR)
IDE researchers: Rick Schifferstein and Nynke Tromp

Project partners: Wageningen UR, TU Delft, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Hello Fresh, Levahrt, Iglo, HAK, ACV, Voedingscentrum, Stichting Samen Tegen Voedselverspilling), EFMI (Food Management Institute) Business School, Capgemini

Our current food system ensures vast quantities of food are available whatever the time or the place, which in turn results in massive food waste. This project will research how our food system can change from both the perspective of the consumer as well as the business side of things, and how we can transition from ‘too much’ to ‘perfectly enough’.

Accelerating the transition to plant-based proteins
Project lead: Prof. Dr Marko Hekkert (Universiteit Utrecht)
IDE researcher: Paul Hekkert

Project partners: Universiteit Utrecht, TU Delft, Wageningen UR, Unilever, Danone Nutricia Research, Green Protein Allinance, Freedomlab/Dasym, Voedingscentrum


Plants instead of meat and dairy. Most of us have been raised with meat on our plates and milk in our glasses. The environmental impacts of meat and dairy products are demanding changes in our diet. This project will research the transistion towards consuming plant-based alternatives for meat and diary products.

You can find the official announcement here.