The rapid growth and development of the Dutch dairy industry has brought a lot of challenges. These are related to the influence on our landscape, the pressure on biodiversity, the reduction of emissions and the improvement of animal welfare. The transition to a sustainable dairy industry that respects animals and the environment is a complex endeavor that will require all involved parties to cooperate and work together on solutions.

In an inter-disciplinary team of students and in close collaboration with industry you will be working on the question: ‘How can dairy farms still exist in the future, in a healthy, sustainable and economically feasible way, from the perspective of the animals, the environment, as well as the farmers?’

One Challenge, two tracks

You can choose between two different tracks: Farm Challenge or Open Challenge. They have a joint start and an end event, but both tracks differ in focus, number of ECTS, registration procedure and expected workload.

This challenge is aimed at third-year bachelor and master students from all disciplines in our alliance institutes in Eindhoven, Wageningen and Utrecht.

Practical information

• Course starts on February 9th, 2023 and ends on May 19th, 2023.
• Live events are on: 09/02, 09/03, 06/04 and 11/05
• The Open Challenge is only for 3rd year bachelor’s and master’s students
• The Farm Challenge is open for all HBO students (college degree) and WO students (university education)
• Online and Offline
• Main differences between both tracks are:

Teaching Method

We will host four different live events of varying locations; events will take place at Dairy farms as much as possible. To fairly distribute the traveling time, we aim to organize this in such a way that each location is close to a different institute.

There will be a joint live event for both tracks where each team will pitch their potential solution to a wide variety of stakeholders. There will be no exams but the Open Challenge does have a project proposal and an individual reflection report at the end (next to the final presentation).

Registration

Deadline for registration is 22 January 2023
Open Challenge (6 ECT):
TU/e via: EduXchange
WUR via: OSIRIS code YWU52806
UU en UMC via: EduXchange
Farm Challenge (Dutch is required, 0 ECT): dutchdairychallenge.nl