The Center for Sustainable Agrifood Systems - START - is a unique platform for collaboration between Danish universities for strategic research related to the green transition of agrifood systems.

Since its launch in March 2022, START has established 10 cross-disciplinary research hubs, where more than 250 faculty from Danish universities engage in cross-disciplinary activities. START has developed a broader community with our annual meetings, and has engaged in policy dialogues with position papers and visits to Brussels.

The first years have given us a platform for further development, and in the coming years, our ambition is to:

• Strengthen the community by launching a portfolio of signature tools and activities aimed at START faculty,
• Collaborating closer with national and international stakeholders to become an even more significant network,
• Continuously align across all Danish universities to maintain and further develop our common commitment to an accelerated green transition of the agrifood-system.

Coming up, we are expanding our annual meeting 2025 to an international forum for dialogue concerning key challenges for a greener future with the Green Minds Gather Conference, generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Going forward, we want to turn our commitment to integrative, inclusive, and interdisciplinary research  – or, in short, Triple-I-research - into specific tools, courses, and activities that will actively build community and stimulate collaboration on research that will contribute to and accelerate the green transition of the agrifood-system.

START is governed by the leadership (deans, directors and alike) of the eight universities. However, START impact is created by the involved faculty, who take the time to meet and work across disciplines on integrative, inclusive and interdisciplinary topics and challenges. As a consequence, the START strategy will focus on giving involved faculty in the research hubs even better opportunities for achieving that in the coming years.

START will only be successful if partners, institutions, policy makers and foundations nationally and internationally appreciate the objective and strategy of START as highly relevant, outstanding and differentiated from the many other centers and single initiatives. We will further the development of START with close dialogue to national and international key stake-holders.

The second strategy of START has been prepared by the START Steering Committee, and it is based on widespread feedback and experience from the START community, including perspectives on future possibilities. The Steering Committee would like to extend its warm thanks for all the contributions to the strategy.

We hope that the strategy will be fruitful for the further development of START, and that it continues to provide the backdrop for integrative, inclusive and interdisciplinary collaboration among Danish research excellence within the green transition of Agrifood Systems. In the end of this strategy period, in 2027, we want START to have more strategic presence among faculty and national and international key stake holders as a core network enabling collaboration and green impact, to have given START faculty concrete Triple-I skills, and to be an exemplary for collaboration between all Danish universities.

We all wish the best for START, and we hope the network receives extensive scientific recognition and creates impact we couldn’t achieve separately. 

Click here to see the START Strategy Paper 2025-2027