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Sustainable Island Solutions through Science, Technology,

Engineering and Mathematics (SISSTEM)

1.5-year, 90 EC multidisci- crop import. This project is a tions for real-life situations.
plinary master program, collaboration between the Eventually they have the
PhD projects for sustainable University of Aruba and the ambition to provide locally
development in small is- University of Leuven. They produced fruits and vege-
land states and a research will investigate the possibili- tables making Aruba's food
and development center. ties of indoor vertical farm- production economy more
The SISSTEM project is the ing on the small island of sustainable.
result of a collaboration Aruba. They will optimize
between the University of the ideal conditions with Development of an opti-
Aruba, KU Leuven and the respect to climate and mized sustainable waste
initial phase is funded by light quantity and quality to management system for
the EU as part of the EDF-11 grow plants in a controlled Aruba
fund. indoor farm. They will grow By Colleen Weekes (PhD gies, taking into account
favorable specialty crops student of the University of the specific socio-econom-
We wish to inform you more (such as strawberries) with Aruba), Jo Van Caneghem, ic context of Aruba. Inves-
BONAIRE, KRALENDIJK — about two recently started a short storage life, to re- Wim Dewulf and Karel Van tigated technologies may
On August 1, 2019 the SIS- SISSTEM PhD projects: duce the dependency Acker (Katholieke Universit- include the fermentation
STEM project kicked off at of import. They also have eit Leuven) Rapidly increas- of organic fractions, small-
the University of Aruba, an Vertical Farming on Aruba: the ambition to translate ing waste generation is scale waste incineration
ambitious program aimed opportunities for Small Is- knowledge on plant physi- posing significant challeng- with energy recovery or
at the development of criti- land States ology and photobiology, to es to small island devel- component remanufactur-
cal capacity for Sustainable By Kryss Facun PhD student agricultural and innovative oping states (SIDS) where ing technologies. The de-
Island Solutions. SISSTEM of the University of Aruba vertical farming applica- geographic isolation, high velopment of these waste
advances sustainability and KU Leuven, Belgium population densities, lim- management systems will
policies at an academic (Sandwich PhD), Promotor: ited regulatory frameworks be based on life cycle and
level, supporting resilience Bram Van de Poel and competing land uses material flow analysis. Re-
in small island states while compound issues related search is incipient with fo-
educating a new gen- Vertical farming it is a rising to municipal solid waste cus being placed on data
eration of academics that trend and is being imple- (MSW) management. This collection and identifica-
have the skills and capac- mented mainly in urban ar- is particularly the case in tion of data gaps as it re-
ity to make these policies a eas to boost local and sus- Aruba where the majority lates to waste mass flows
reality. tainable food production. of waste has been depos- and composition as well as
Small Island States, such as ited without pre-treatment the waste collection and
SISSTEM offers a 3-year, 180 Aruba, are lacking land for at landfill. The main aim of treatment strategies cur-
EC bachelor program in massive agricultural devel- this PhD research is to im- rently being employed on
STEM with specializations opment, so growing verti- prove MSW management the island.
in bio-environmental sci- cally and indoors is a great by maximizing local reuse
ences, technology and opportunity to become and recycling as well as For more information on SIS-
engineering, and informat- more self-sufficient, and employing energy and re- STEM, please contact Eric
ics and data sciences; a partly independent on agri- source recovery technolo- Mijts (eric.mijts@ua.aw). q

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