Matin Qaim was invited as key note speaker at the Agrarforschungstag Nordrheinwestfalen (Agricultural Research Day North Rhine-Westphalia) 2026, which took place in Bonn on September 3, 2026. The topic of his talk was "The Importance of Agricultural Research for Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture". The annual event is hosted and organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Protection of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Ministerium für Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, MLV-NRW).

There has been a rapid increase in cardiovascular and metabolic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa. What is the link between sustainable diets that are nutritious, environmentally friendly, economically affordable, and socioculturally acceptable, and cardiometabolic conditions? An international research team led by Prof. Dr. Ina Danquah, Hertz Chair for Innovation for Planetary Health in the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Sustainable Futures” and Director at Center for Development Research (ZEF) at University of Bonn, investigated this question among Ghanaian adults living in Ghana or Europe.

From August 24-28, 2026, Prof. Dr. Ina Danquah, Hertz-Chair for Innovation for Planetary Health and Director at ZEF and Prof. Dr. Ute Nöthlings, Head of Nutritional Epidemiology at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, hosted 20+ participants and six facilitators for an engaging summer school on Nutritional Epidemiology at ZEF.  

The Right Livelihood Campus (RLC), which is based at ZEF, University of Bonn, Germany, offers scholarships for PhD students from Africa, Asia and Latin America to participate in the Transdisciplinary RLC Workshop on "Rural Development and Smallholder Agriculture”, October 6-7, 2026, in Bonn. Who can apply? PhD students from Africa, Asia and Latin America who currently study at a University in Germany, from disciplines in natural sciences, social sciences, economic sciences, development studies, and environmental sciences. Fluent English is mandatory. Applications by women are particularly welcome.

Congratulations to our colleague Tina Beuchelt, who completed and accomplished her Habilitation at the Faculty of Agricultural, Engineering and Nutritional Sciences at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn today. She therewith has the title Privatdozent (PD) now.

ZEF is among the institutions severely affected by budget cuts in development-related training programs and university partnerships by the German government. Read more about the background of the cuts and why and how ZEF is affected on our website here. 

The German government has resorted to a number of austerity measures affecting various areas of society, including higher education and development cooperation. ZEF is among the institutions severely affected by government cuts in development-related training programs and university partnerships. Roughly half of ZEF's doctoral alumni have received funding over the past 30 years through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD EPOS), one of the programs affected by the cuts. Many of these alumni have taken on leading positions in government administration or universities in their home countries or in international development or research organizations. Therefore, ZEF is part of a growing network-driven movement protesting against these cuts.

On July 10, 2026, together with Prof. Andreas Schlitzer (Immunology-Bonn University) and Dr. Marius Bartmann (Ethics- Bonn University), Prof. Ina Danquah, Hertz-Chair for Innovation for Planetary Health at Bonn University and ZEF-Director, participated in a panel discussion on the ship MS Wissenschaft (MS Science)  The event on "Rethinking Prevention – A Dialogue on the Future of Health" was organized in cooperation with Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, represented by Collaborative Research Center 1454 “Metaflammation and Cellular Programming”, the enaCom Transfer Center, and the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Life and Health.”