SPARC workshop at Kerala Agricultural University [23.09.25]
Julie Fortin, PhD student in the Bright Spots project, is currently on a field visit to Kerala.
As a first stop in her schedule, Julie led a weeklong workshop for students at Kerala Agricultural University entitled "Assessment and evaluation of food system sustainability", funded by the SPARC project between Uni Hohenheim and KAU. The course was coordinated by collaborating researcher Dr. Archana Raghavan Sathyan and co-instructed by Bright Spots research coordinator Dr. Haseena Kadiri. The workshop enabled KAU students to explore topics of agroecology, food systems, supply chains, sustainability, nutrition and public health, and more. In addition, students learned both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to define and measure sustainability, such as participatory methods, visioning, composite indicators and spatial data science. As an extra bonus, Julie also hosted guest lecturers from the Bright Spots and Bright Futures project teams, including Jun-Prof. Dr. Verena Seufert, Dr. Anne Elise Stratton, and Prof. Dr. Ingo Grass, among others. Overall, the experience contributed to building relationships and sparking new ideas for future work.
