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Summer School on “Modelling Food Security” has started
by David
The POLISES research group welcomes 18 PhD students and postdocs to its summer school on the UFZ’s Leipzig campus. In a combination of lectures and group modelling exercises, the participants will be introduced to different modelling approaches ranging from large (e.g. global models on food demand, global crop models) to small scales (e.g. household models on food availability, agent-based approaches) and spanning different aspects of food production, trade, and consumption.
Combining biophysical and socioeconomic models, one goal is to learn about opportunities and challenges when coupling models that operate at different scales. Moreover, the summer school discusses tools that can help build innovative solutions in the effort to reduce trade-offs between food security targets and environmental objectives. First steps to develop such solutions will be taken by the participants in joint project work.
The lecturers include experts from UFZ, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), who have jointly organized this course. Participants come from a dozen different countries and have a range of disciplinary and modelling backgrounds, which promises stimulating exchange and discussion. The summer school is running from September 8 to 14.