Food Waste Taxation

We are looking for curious and motivated bachelor and master students who would like to take part in a multi- and interdisciplinary student-driven research project about sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the spring of 2021. The theme of the project is "Food Waste Taxation" and the project is open for students from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark.

The academic field of the theme “Food Waste Taxation” provides various opportunities for the students to work with the project from various perspectives, dependent on the students’ interests. Such aspects would be e.g. tax law incentives and challenges within taxation of foods and food waste, food and health regulation, human and fundamental rights, behavioral economic studies within food waste, nudging etc. There are many possibilities!  

The research project is conducted in collaboration with other students across academic fields and disciplines and in close dialogue with researchers and external collaborators from the industry. The project will take place as one large study group with a main theme from which the students will choose their subgroups/sub-themes in accordance with the students' interests. It is possible for the students to get ECTS-points from the participation in the project. See below for the possibilities.

The students’ findings of the projects can be communicated in an optional way e.g. through a podcast episode, a blog post, a feature article, a debate piece, an article, an academic report, a co-publication in a booklet, a presentation at a seminar, a start-up/business case etc. The options can be limited for students who get credits from their participation.

All students will receive a participant's certificate at the project’s closeout, which can be included in the student’s résumé.

The project is conducted in collaboration with the Greenhouse for Tax Sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Human & Legal Innovation Hub, The University of Copenhagen.  

The following seminars are held:

  • 24th February 2021 at 14-16: Kick-off, inspiration and group division
  • 10th March 2021 at 14-16: Knowledge sharing, sparring and choice of dissemination activity
  • 29th March 2021 at 12-15: Joint workshop/case study on “Field Experiments” at the Department of Economics with guest lecturer Associate professor Cristina Trenta, Örebro University, who will give a presentation on “Food waste v. food donations – Is the EU VAT Directive in breach of the human right to food?”
  • 21st April 2021 at 14-16: Knowledge sharing, sparring and start-ups
  • 26th May 2021 at 14-16: Presentation, feedback and evaluation with an external expert panel
  • June 2021 or later: Implementation of dissemination activity.

In addition to participation in the above, the students should expect to allot time for obtaining empirical data, data collection, searching for sources, readings, preparing presentations, writing, planning and working with dissemination activities, additional group meetings, etc. In addition to the seminars, the research team offers voluntary 'open office' sessions to be decided later. Physical attendance is a priority, but Zoom- and hybrid meetings will substitute when necessary. During Zoom-meetings, it is required that the participating students have their camera on. The project will be conducted in Danish/English, primarily in English.  

Students who want to participate in the project as an extracurricular activity (without getting credits) must register through the link below. Students who want their participation in the project to be ECTS-awarding must both register for the relevant ECTS-awarding course in The Course Catalogue and register through the link below. However, there may be other options for students to be able to work with the theme in other ECTS-awarding courses – contact the relevant study administration, teachers, and course coordinators or research team for more information about the possibilities. Please contact Christina Gravert cag@econ.ku.dk for the possibilities at the Department of Economics.

If the project sounds interesting and you would like to participate, please register here no later than 10 February 2021. There is a maximum number of participants of 20 students. The selected participants will receive a reply no later than 15 February 2021, and everyone will receive a reply. If you have any questions about the project, you are very welcome to contact karina.egholm.elgaard@jur.ku.dk, monica.sarah.brink@jur.ku.dk or anyone from the research team.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Best regards

The research team, consisting of:

Associate professor Karina Kim Egholm Elgaard, FIRE – Fiscal Relations Research Group, The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

Assistant professor Christina Gravert, Department of Economics, The Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Copenhagen

Project student Monica Sarah Brink, FIRE – Fiscal Relations Research Group, The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen