Steering Committee

Country: Norway

Bio: Mona Gravningen Rygh is Special Adviser at The Research Council of Norway (RCN), Department for food and bioeconomy. Her responsibility areas are the Food System, Food Safety and, in particular, Food and Health. This includes funding, policy and strategy related work both nationally and internationally. She is M.Sc. in molecular cell biology. She has been a science journalist and editor of different Norwegian research magazines. For several years, she was Director of Communications in the RCN.

Country: Belgium

Bio: Dr. ir. Hendrik De Ruyck, Scientific Expert/Research Group Leader Chemical Food Safety and Product Quality and Innovation, coordinates international, national and regional (Flemish) funded research projects about Chemical Food Safety and Product Quality and Innovation during 34 years at ILVO in Flanders in Belgium. He is Bio-Engineer and food technologist, and obtained a PhD on applied biological sciences in Ghent University with an expertise in analytical LC and GC-MS techniques.

He was and is actively participating in many FP7 and H2020 European networking projects such as ERA-nets SUSFOOD1 and SUSFOOD2, HDHL-INTIMIC, SusCrop and FOSC; JPI HDHL, and the Green ERA-Hub and the HE Partnership ERA4Health with functions as deputy coordinator, WP leader and task leader for tasks concerning communication, stakeholder involvement, project evaluation, impact assessment and science-policy interface. Hendrik represent also Belgium in the Management Board of HDHL and the SCAR SWG on food systems.

Country: Romania

Bio: Nastasia Belc is the Director General of The National R&D Institute for Food Bioresources, IBA. She is a senior food scientist, PhD, and professor to the Faculty of Biotechnology within the University of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine in Bucharest. She is a member of the Romanian Academy for Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, President of Consultative Council of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization, member of Scientific Council of The Sanitary Veterinary Authority and Food Safety and member of the Accreditation Council of RENAR (National Accreditation Body). Since 2021, she is also a member of the Consultative Council of Sustainable Development Department. 

Nastasia Belc is member of SCAR Food System Working Group and since 2010 she is nominated by the Ministry of Research and Innovation to be a member of Governing Board of Food security, Agriculture and Climate Change, FACCE-JPI and a member of the Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (HDHL) Management Board. Since 2017, she is also a Node Representative for pan-European Research Infrastructure, METROFOOD-RI.

Country: Lithuania

Bio: Alvija is currently director of the Food institute at Kaunas University of Technology. She is a member of the SCAR FOOD SYSTEM working group as a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania. She is leader of National Food System policy lab within the JPI project FIT4Food2030 framework. Furthermore, she is a scientific expert – member at Research and Innovation Council of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania. Lastly, she is a global auditor of BRC and FSSC Food schemes Expert of the Centre for Quality assessment in Higher education as education programme designer and expert.