Job Wageningen UR (University & Research centre) - PhD position, “In vitro meat: why will we (not) want to eat it?

The primary objective of this PhD project is to understand initial reactions to in vitro meat as well as the later processes of framing.

It is expected that the global meat demand will continue to increase in the future, although breeding livestock for meat production has serious disadvantages in terms of sustainability and animal welfare. The production of meat (muscle tissue) from cultured stem cells is a potential and promising alternative.

As has been the case with other technologies, such as genetic modification, public attitudes may influence the success of in vitro meat and the success of in vitro meat will partly depend on public attitudes. We are looking for an AIO who is interested in developing new approaches to understanding how people respond to in vitro meat as a result of emerging technologies.

The project is a 4 year PhD position with the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group (MCB) and the Research Methodology Group (RMG) of the Social Sciences Department of Wageningen University. MCB and RMG have a strong reputation in research in associated areas and the supervisors have experience with developing and applying experimental approaches to understanding citizen and consumer responses to technology. The present project is part of a bigger programme which also includes a technical project at the University of Utrecht and an ethics project at LEI (Dr. Cor van der Weele)

It is our aim to become a key player in the investigation of public perception of sustainably produced foods and to develop cutting edge methods and knowledge regarding prediction of societal responses to new technologies.  It is expected this research will deliver several high quality papers in scientific journals.

Wageningen University and Research centre

Delivering a substantial contribution
to the quality of life. That's our focus – each and every day.
Within our domain, healthy food and living environment, we search for
answers to issues affecting society – such as sustainable food
production, climate change and alternative energy. Of course, we
don’t do this alone. Every day, 6,500 people work on ‘the quality
of life’, turning ideas into reality, on a global scale.



Could
you be one of these people? We give you the space you need.



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