Press release: Sustainable food systems and the meaning and structure of sentences

No. 187 - 01.12.2025

DFG extends funding for two Research Training Groups at Göttingen University

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has extended its funding for two Research Training Groups (RTGs) at the University of Göttingen. The RTG “Sustainable Food Systems” carries out research at the interface between agricultural and economic sciences and has been awarded funding of around €5.5 million. The RTG “Form-meaning Mismatches” carries out research in linguistics and will receive around €4.5 million in funding. Both funding extensions last four and a half years and will begin in spring and summer 2026, respectively.

Global food security has still not been achieved. New and complex challenges continue to hinder the paths to sustainable solutions. These include the growing ecological footprint of agriculture, rapidly changing diets and lifestyles, increasing malnutrition, and shifting public attitudes towards agricultural and food issues. Current global crises – from climate change and geopolitical conflicts, to health threats – further exacerbate these problems and highlight the close interdependence of agriculture, the environment, food and society.

The RTG “Sustainable Food Systems” aims to gain a better understanding of the complex interactions between agriculture, consumption, nutrition, health, the environment and social attitudes. The programme enables early career researchers in the economic and social sciences to study nutrition and agriculture through the lens of an integrated food system and so to develop innovative solutions. “The international nature of our programme and the diverse internal and external collaborations open up excellent opportunities for the RTG to network globally and gain valuable interdisciplinary experience,” says RTG spokesperson Professor Meike Wollni from the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.

The PhD researchers of the RTG “Form-meaning Mismatches” investigate the systematic assignment of form and meaning in natural languages. In doing so, they receive a structured, interdisciplinary and international education in linguistics. The focus is on the question of how the meaning of a sentence arises from its words and their order - and to what extent the meaning allows conclusions to be drawn about the sentence structure. “While clear connections are evident in some areas, the relationship between form and meaning remains largely unclear in other cases,” says RTG spokesperson Professor Hedde Zeijlstra.

The following departments are involved: English, German, Romance languages, Slavic languages, general linguistics, psycholinguistics and the Human-Centred Data Science Group. The programme also examines language acquisition, cognitive processing, the historical development and variation of languages, as well as sign languages – a key research area at the University of Göttingen.

Further information about the two RTGs can be found at www.uni-goettingen.de/en/635183.html and www.uni-goettingen.de/en/635554.html.

Contact:

Professor Meike Wollni

University of Göttingen

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences

Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development

Platz der Göttinger Sieben 5, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Tel: +49 (0)551 39-24854

Email: mwollni1@uni-goettingen.de

www.uni-goettingen.de/en/184903.html

Professor Hedde Zeijlstra

University of Göttingen