Every November, the Unilever Research Prizes awards ceremony inspires hope for the future as we get up close with the impressive research work of Master of Science students in the Netherlands.
Each of the students come from universities all over the country and are nominated by their academic supervisers for the Unilever Research Prize. All have graduated with high honours or distinctions.
Their chosen masters’ theses make an important contribution to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing the world’s most challenging issues. This year the research centred on the following topics: The transition to clean energy; carbon sequestration on land and in water; novel approaches to reducing food loss and waste; advancing multiscale multimodal imaging in commercial instruments; the role of social media in healthcare management; understanding how genderqueer people navigate gender via their clothing choices; helping the elderly to reduce their risk of unprotected sun exposure; better understanding multinuclear homogeneous catalysts; and helping consumers to avoid the financial pitfalls associated with buy-now-pay-later schemes.
The awards ceremony was hosted by Manfred Aben, Head of Science & Technology for Foods and Ice Cream R&D, and site leader for Hive. Peter Dekkers, General Manager Foods Europe and Country Lead Netherlands, joined Manfred in awarding the students with their prizes during the ceremony.
Manfred Aben remarked on the impressive level of talent again this year: “You are here today because your work is exceptional. It is clear each of you is very passionate about your chosen area of research and that is something to be celebrated.”
The nominated award winners got to present their key findings to the audience of academics, Unilever scientists, industry representatives and their family and friends through a poster presentation, with two of the winners sharing more in-depth details in a presentation during the award ceremony.
Student winners 2024
Niek Aarts - Radboud University Nijmegen
Jeannet Schroten - Twente University
Juliane Klaure - Leiden University
Maaike Weitering - Erasmus University Rotterdam
Caroline Coeckelbergh - Maastricht University
Loek Vellekoop - Delft University of Technology
Demi Coenraads - University of Amsterdam
Annemijn van Koten - Utrecht University
Sara van Mourik - VU Amsterdam
Ximena Lainfiesta - Wageningen University
Cees Maessen - Jheronimus Academy of Data Science
The prize giving
Each student received a cheque for €2,500 and a special glass artwork called ‘The Helping Hand’, which symbolises the collaboration that is needed between industry and science to face global challenges together.
Keynote addresses
Two guest speakers also took part in the awards ceremony. Professor Antal van den Bosch, a pioneer in the field of language technology and AI spoke first. He is Professor of Language, Communication and Computation at Utrecht University and spoke about the role of ChatGPT, including its flaws, biases and unreliability. He drew upon findings from neuroscience and warnings from philosophy.
The second speaker was Sarah Lieder, Head of Future Bio-Ingredients at Unilever Foods and Ice Cream R&D, based at Hive. She spoke about how in an era where technological advancements are reshaping industries, the field of food biotechnology stands at the forefront of innovation. She delved into the transformative potential of combining biotechnology, AI and collaborative efforts to accelerate food science.
Photos
Find all photos of the event here!