The award consists of € 3.000

Statement, Rules and Guidelines for the Pieter Walstra Award 2018: A)    Background
The Pieter Walstra Award has been installed in 2011 by the Dutch Dairy Organisation (NZO) to honour the unique contribution of Prof. dr. Pieter Walstra († May 2012) to the area of dairy science and technology. His contribution existed of fundamental scientific knowledge that was inspired by practical problems and directed towards practical applications. This knowledge has substantially contributed to the development of the Dutch dairy industry. He also made a major contribution in educating many students in this field. Many of his graduates found a position in the field of dairy research, organisations and industry.

B)    Purpose of the award
The purpose of the award is to stimulate excellent scientific publications in the field of dairy science and technology, in the spirit of Pieter Walstra’s work: critical, innovative,  inspired by and directed towards practical problems. The award should be spent preferably on dissemination of the awarded work at congresses and seminars, on webinars, on further elaboration of the awarded work, or similar purposes.

C)    Description of the Award
The Pieter Walstra Award will be presented every two years, the first edition was in 2012, so this call is the fourth edition. The Award will be given to a person who has written an outstanding scientific publication related to dairy science in a broad sense, covering one of the disciplines of primary production, milk genomics, processing, nutrition, marketing, or combinations thereof. The publication can be a paper in a refereed scientific journal or it can be a PhD thesis. The Award consists of a price of €3000 and a certificate. The Award will be handed over during the spring meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Dairy Science (Genootschap ter Bevordering van de Melkkunde), held in the Netherlands around March - April each year. The Award winner will be asked to give a short presentation of his/her work during this meeting and is also asked to report later on to the Board of the Advancement of Dairy Science and the NZO how the Award is spent.

D)    Criteria
The publication should not be older than two years (per January 1, 2018) and needs to have been published, either in a refereed scientific journal, or as a PhD thesis. The publication needs to be an outstanding piece of work, to be judged by the jury mentioned below. The research area can be of a fundamental nature or can be more applied, directed towards practical solutions. The prime criterion is that the work has significantly advanced the knowledge in relation to dairy science and technology. This can be taken in a broad sense over the whole of the dairy chain, i.e., from breeding up to nutrition and everything in between, as explained under C. It does not necessarily have to be research on milk per se, as long as it can be applied to milk and milk products.


E)    Application
Nominations should be in English and submitted electronically to the chairman of the jury, Prof. dr. Tiny van Boekel. A person can only submit a specific publication once. There is no geographic limitation. Young scientists (younger than 40 years per January 1, 2018) are especially encouraged to submit. Apart from the  publication or thesis, a CV should be included with a list of publications. Nominations for the fourth award (in 2018) will be solicited and have to reach the Jury before December 1, 2017 (i.e., at least 4 months prior to the Spring meeting 2018 of the Society for the Advancement of Dairy Science, in this case April 19, 2018). Individuals may also bring a publication from someone else to the attention of the Jury.

F)    Selection and notification
The jury will evaluate the submissions and will apply the following criteria:

  • Scientific content and contribution to the scientific field
  • Originality and innovative aspects
  • Contribution to the advancement of dairy science and technology
  • Valorisation and application possibilities for dairy science and technology


Nominees will be notified of the decision of the Jury ultimately one month before the Spring meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Dairy Science.

G)    Jury
Prof.dr.ir. M.A.J.S. van Boekel, chairman (Wageningen University & Research, representing academia)
Prof.dr. ir. G.J. Hiddink , Prof emeritus Nutrition Communication through Health Professionals, Wageningen University& Research (representing NZO)
Dr Elsa Antunes-Fernandes (Institute for Risk Assessment, Utrecht University, also representing the Board of the Society for the Advancement of Dairy Science)

The Jury has the freedom to seek external advice and its final judgement is not open  for discussion.

25.09.2017