Sigrid Wertheim-Heck

Sigrid Wertheim-Heck is Associate Professor in Global Food System Sustainability at the Environmental Policy Group of Wageningen University and Principal Investigator at the Advanced Metropolitan Solutions Institute focusing on urban food systems, both in the Netherlands. 

As a sociologist, her research takes a localized perspective on socio-technical food system transformations and the interrelations between urbanization, provisioning, and consumption, emphasizing bottom-up governance arrangements and the ways local practices connect with national and global dynamics.

In advancing global food system sustainability, her work adopts a reverse food system approach. Rather than starting from production and provisioning, her research begins with everyday consumption practices to understand and promote contextually appropriate and inclusive governance for environmentally and socially sustainable transformations. Through projects across Asia, Africa, and Europe, she examines how these practices evolve and foster cross-contextual learning on global–local dynamics.

During her MAK’IT fellowship, she will explore how everyday urban food practices—formal, informal, and hybrid—can act as key levers for agroecological governance and transformation.