Ignacio De Los Rios

• PhD
• Research Director at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Food waste has become an international problem that is currently part of public agendas and policies. This problem has different social, economic and environmental dimensions. The international debate relates food waste to climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, due to the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) by the inefficient use of re...

In project management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are frequently used as tools for the organization, storage, manipulation, analysis, and modeling of data that facilitate decision making and the dissemination of results. In this research, this tool is presented in the novel area of responsible consumption and the problem of food waste, fo...

The guinea pig value chain in Jauja, Peru, has been developed through the application of productive projects, institutional strengthening, and implementation of the Principles of Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI). Given the smallholding conditions of the Jauja territory and the proliferation of commercial guinea pig b...

A The guinea pig value chain in Jauja, Peru, has been developed through the application of productive projects, institutional strengthening and implementation of the principles of responsible investment in agriculture and food systems (CFS-RAI). The actors in this chain have been showing economic improvements, representativeness and participation,...

In industrialised countries and developed societies, there is a paradox regarding food surpluses and the presence of poverty and social exclusion. In such societies, although there are signs of solidarity being implemented, it is necessary to spread human and cultural values to be aware of the social, environmental, and economic consequences of foo...

The contribution of academics and researchers to the discussion around sustainable rural development planning and its impact on rural communities has grown exponentially in recent years. Understanding trends in sustainable rural development research requires considering the different factors involved and affecting people from a holistic approach. T...

The contribution of academics and researchers to the discussion around sustainable rural development planning and its impact on rural communities has grown exponentially in recent years. Understanding trends in sustainable rural development research requires considering the different factors involved and affecting people from a holistic approach. T...

This research analyzed the importance of competencies within the development of the cooperative system through the case study of the Tejemujeres Women’s Artisan Cooperative, for which a documentary and field investigation was conducted with a descriptive and explanatory scope under a mixed approach. The importance of cooperatives as tools of social...

This article presents an innovative methodological approach for the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) based on the model ‘Working with People’ (WWP). This WWPmodel is proposed for the application of the VGGT in Colombia and Guatemala, based on four phases. The re...

Con el título “Incidencia de los proyectos de Vinculación con la Sociedad de la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana”, apareció en diciembre del 2021 la publicación impulsada por el Grupo de Investigación en Desarrollo Local – GIDLO y coordinada por Blas Garzón Vera y Juan Cárdenas Tapia, sdb. La intensión fue sistematizar algunos Proyectos de Vincula...

The Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI) are shown as suitable instruments to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in rural areas. Local Action Groups (LAGs) have proven to be effective governance structures for the implementation and management of rural development projects based on parti...

Purpose This study analyses income inequality and distribution patterns among key actors in the cassava value chain. The study also identifies factors that influence profit of key actors in the cassava value chain. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted in Oyo State, Nigeria, using primary data from 620 actors, consisting of 400 farme...

Con este mismo título, en diciembre de 2021, apareció el primer volumen de este trabajo. La intención fue sistematizar algunos proyectos de vinculación que habían logrado impactos sociales en términos cualitativos y de innovación educativa. En esa oportunidad se presentó una obra con diez capítulos de reflexión, sistematización, análisis y descripc...

Finding a pathway between high levels of economic competitiveness and sustainability is challenging. The global economy has been long-calling for a paradigm shift as far as the consumption and production models have been concerned over the last decades. In this regard, transforming our world to the imperative vision described in the 2030 Agenda for...

Since countries around the world have adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the concept of Industry 4.0 was externalized at the World Economic Forum in 2016, many investigations have concluded that industries are advancing rapidly through emerging technology projects in a number of fields, enabling them to become more sustainable...

There is a growing interest in educational innovation in universities at a global level, as a tool designed to create strategic changes in order to improve quality. This study evaluates the global improvement in universities as a result of educational innovation governance, as a pillar of the so-called world-class research universities and as a too...

The educational subject of Sustainable Development Planning in Europe is evolving due to the implementation of the Bologna Agreement across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This paper analyses a project-based learning strategy for training Sustainable Development Planning in postgraduate programs, in Spain (Universidad Politécnica de Madr...

Poor soil fertility emanating from land degradation is one of the causes of low crop productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the issues of food insecurity and poverty have become prevalent in these countries. It is however imperative to explore agricultural innovations such as mineral fertiliser to improve soil fertility of the arable lands...

Projects have become an essential instrument for the success of universities. In a context of globalization and increasing complexity, they must sharpen their resourcefulness to face these challenges and adapt to this changing environment. To reach these objectives, they undertake a series of activities of a unique, concrete and temporary nature, n...

This research shows a business initiative that has been able to integrate into an environmentally sustainable food production system, such as poultry farming, a positive impact on food security and public health patterns of low-income populations in an emerging country. For a process that took 20 years, the adopted strategy has become a positive ex...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effects of the determinants of farmer participation in value addition through cassava processing in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach This study employs the probit model to analyse the determinants of farmer participation in value addition whereas the Tobit model is used to investigate the det...

Improving rural farmers’ access to direct agricultural markets is required to ensure sustainable supply of food. Rural farmers in the developing world account for the largest share of food supply including cassava. Globally, cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is recognised as an important source of valuable semi-processed industrial raw materials s...

In a context that approaches the limits of environmental and social problems, and in view of the challenges that the agri-food sector faces today, the need to produce more food, linking environmental sustainability and human health, constitutes a means for sector organizations to turn these new conditions into opportunities to achieve their strateg...

The methods of substituting illicit crops in conflict areas have been debated at an international level in various studies. However, not many studies have focused on the effects of substituting illicit crops with regards to the concept of rural prosperity. The paper presents a new methodological focus for substituting illicit crops in conflict area...

The paradigm that assumes the autonomous management of universities involves them in the redefinition of their policies and processes and the training of their staff, designing new formulas that allow them to adapt to a changing environment. In this context, research and sustainable universities can link with society to solve its problems and influ...

Es ampliamente conocida la difícil situación económica, social y productiva de las zonas rurales de México, sobre todo de aquellas con prevalencia de pequeños productores y de una agricultura tradicional, donde se agrupan la mayoría de las unidades de producción. Está claro que los esfuerzos realizados por el Estado mexicano para lograr el desarrol...

The widespread transformations in farming practices during recent decades across many parts of Europe – increased capital intensity, scale enlargement, specialization, intensification and mechanization have been accompanied by a quite dramatic shift towards more standardized agricultural information and knowledge. Previous research reveals that tra...

In the past, rural prosperity has been mainly associated with the modernisation of agriculture and the economic benefits that appear to originate from it. Today we know that this simple logic is not correct in several respects. Regionally, structural changes to farms and the modernisation of a few farms have not always contributed to prosperous rur...

The research is part of a University-Civil Society relationship, which is framed on UPM-FESBAL Food Banks Chair, as a means to establish a long-term strategic collaboration, in order to “Work with people”, to achieve a rational and supportive consumption. A better understanding of food waste generation in school canteens represents a clear opportun...

Responsible land governance can contribute to achieve social development, decreasing poverty and famine and reach an inclusive economic development. Agroforestry system comprises a wide range of stakeholders and diverse social, political, economic and natural environments. The conflict between some mapuche communities and the Chilean State has been...

Today, the agrifood sector faces major environmental and social challenges that pose a challenge to the competitiveness of SMEs and small farmers, while representing an opportunity to add value to the agricultural sector and improve livelihoods. These are circumstances that urgently require a system of governance that provides effective, fair and l...

Agricultural programmes are implemented in sub-Saharan African countries to stimulate rural economic development. One such programme is the Presidential Cassava Initiative (PCI) in Nigeria aimed at reducing poverty and food insecurity, but there is a limited study on contribution of the programme to cassava output and food security. This study esti...

In the engineering education field, there is an identified need of innovative learning and teaching methods to improve students’ entrepreneurship competencies in order to make connections between engineering and real society. This chapter addresses a management strategy for entrepreneurship projects in the university framework. It is the result of...

In order to remain competitive and stay in the market in the near future, farmers will be compelled to adopt a portfolio ofstrategies that include a series of innovative proposals, with the active participation and commitment of everyone involved.To achieve this, enterprises must bet on knowledge and learning as main element to integrate experience...

Palabras clave: Dirección de proyectos, Sector agroalimentario, Sostenibilidad RESUMEN El sector agroalimentario es fundamental para el desarrollo de un país, pero hoy día, éste se enfrenta a grandes desafíos ambientales y sociales que suponen un reto para la competitividad de las PyMES y de pequeños agricultores, a la vez que representan una oport...

This chapter provides the foundations for a new approach in competence development for rural development project management, involving the role of higher education in the solution of real-life problems. This experience took place in senior courses at La Plata University and included the participation of students from this university. The research w...

This paper analyses the impacts of mineral fertilisers on the livelihoods of rural farmers in Nigeria using econometric approaches: ESR and PSM

This book fills a gap between theory and practice in the field of the rural communities’ research. The book consists of fourteen chapters which analyze specific aspects and suggest possible solutions regarding rural communities in the global economy, insisting on the recent transformations of the classical rural economy paradigms in contemporary e...

The concept of development has been frequently used in recent decades to replace the term progress. Rural development in the global economy is understood as a complex process that is usually associated to specific policies when applying for financial support for countries in need. This chapter is proposed to emphasize that the rural communities’ ai...

In recent years, Colombia has faced forced displacement, destruction of social capital and the indiscriminate felling of forests in regions affected by illicit crops. The presence of illegal armed groups is strengthened by the income received from illegal activity. Despite the fight against illicit crops in Colombia over a number of years, the prob...

The socio-economic inclusion of the populace in cases of extreme poverty is an issue which currently begs for permanent, innovative and comprehensive policies in the field of Human Development (HD). These actions are especially relevant when these cross sections include children, adolescents and youth (CAY) who face multiple vulnerabilities such as...

Insurgencies and Revolutions brings together former students, close research associates, and colleagues of John Friedmann to reflect on his contributions to planning theory and practice. The volume is organized around five broad themes where Friedmann’s contributions have risen to challenge established paradigms and generated the space for revoluti...

There has been a continuous growth in ecological agriculture (EA) in recent years. It is recognized as a production system with rational energy use and low demand for fossil fuels. There are many studies relating to this subject, in contrast to the few studies regarding the use of energy and its impact on the environment in ecological greenhouses....

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa have devised a number of agricultural interventions to stimulate economic development. One of such interventions is the presidential cassava initiative (PCI) in Nigeria, implemented during the period 2002–2010. The intervention aimed at promoting cassava production, alleviating rural poverty and promoting national...

The debate around Food Banks has reactivated at international level, especially in moments of economic crisis. Nevertheless, few scientific papers have focused on analysing the success factors of their management as institutions that work through projects, neither on estimating their social impacts. This paper aims to analyse the Madrid Food Bank w...

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) represents a challenge to university teachers to adapt their evaluation systems, directing them towards continuous assessment. The integration of competence-based learning as an educational benchmark has also led to a perspective more focused on student and with complex learning situations closer to reality...

Systems and agricultural organizations are facing new challenges in an increasingly complex and competitive environment. Opposing the existence of other food producers that show low profitability in their production systems, there are other models that have differentiated through ecological production being able to reach high profitability in their...

Ecological agriculture (EA) is a global tendency that seeks a natural and friendly relationship with the environment to promote plant and animal biodiversity. The debate of the EA in the face of conventional agriculture has been discussed internationally in numerous investigations. However, few studies have focused on tackling the effects of EA in...

There is growing interest in the ability of both private–public partnerships and entrepreneurship to promote sustainable rural development. This research outlines the historical chronology and the importance of the PPP (Private Public Partnership) for rural entrepreneurship; the complexity of PPP management dimensions is also analyzed. In addition,...

The article discusses the review of the state of professional competence art, presenting a compilation of indexed research in the two most comprehensive multidisciplinary databases: "Scopus" and "Web of Science" from 1950 to 2012. By analyzing scientific domain of research literature the existence of eight approaches of professional competence is s...

In spite of a number of national policies and programs against illicit crops, the issue still persists, along with all the socio-economic implications it carries with it. Four years after implementing the Comprehensive Consolidation Plan of La Macarena, the Information Systems and the Illicit Crop Monitoring of the United Nations recognized a signi...

Innovation, knowledge and technology transfer (TT) in the area of renewable energy (RE) throughout history have been important tools for rural development (RD). Initially, the knowledge transfer and TT have been conceptualized as the purchase or donation of technology and machinery from first world countries, without any consideration of staff trai...

This paper proposes an economic instrument designed to assess the competitive nature of the sugar industry in Romania. In the first part of the paper is presented the theoretical background underlying index (HHI) and its calculation methodology. Then comes the results of a first application of this index for a total of 10 plants in the sugar indust...

During the past fifty years, Colombia has endured an internal armed conflict. It has left as a result massive forced displacements, destruction of the social capital and indiscriminate logging of forests in regions affected by illicit crops and a strong presence of illegal armed groups supported by drug trafficking. In spite of a number of national...

Resilience is understood as the capacity of rural systems to transform and adapt, and this is key to achieving sustainable rural development. The aim of the research is to study resilience from a cooperative framework based on four concepts: persistence, adaptability, transformation capacity, and learning, and to collect successful strategies that...

In industrialized countries and in developed societies there is a contradiction on food surpluses and the existence of poverty pockets and marginalization. In these societies, though there are indications that awaken the spirit of solidarity, it is necessary to spread human and cultural values to become aware of the social, environmental and econom...

El Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES) supone un reto para adaptar los sistemas de evaluación, dirigiéndolos hacia la evaluación continua. Tras un tiempo de aplicación de cambios y en el marco del proyecto transversal de innovación educativa “EVALUA”, apoyado por el servicio de Innovación Educativa, la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UP...

Forest engineering in Spain has a long tradition and active presence in the engineering field. It is also one of the first educational institutions that shaped the Spanish technological panorama in the mid nineteenth century. The actual situation of the forest systems in Spain is the result of 166 years of observation, research, education and the a...

Currently, given the importance of innovation for resilience of a territory and the need to unite in this process the planner's expert knowledge with the experienced knowledge of the affected population, universities have to make companies aware of its influence through the production processes and create the necessaries links putting at the servic...

Accidents at work in Spain represent the first cause of job loss, which demonstrates the importance of Health and Security, not only at the human level, but also in its repercussion and productivity. Risk prevention at work is a pending subject at all organization levels, including the education area. It is therefore needed to develop efficient act...

The formulation, implementation and management of rural development projects require participatory processes that induce collective action. These processes require new social structures involving civil society organizations such as the so-called Local Action Groups (LAGs), established in the context of the European initiative LEADER. This essay dis...

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of promoting professional project management skills in Engineering Higher Education, evolving from Graduate to Postgraduate Programs. The strategy was born from a cooperative model of Project Based Learning (PBL) created with the experience of the GIE-Project, Educational Innovati...

This paper shows the skills and competences (technical, behavioural and contextual) affecting regional and rural development in Romania. The methodology used is based on the model of Working with People (WWP), which integrates elements of social learning and planningand Project management international models, which integrate competences that have...

Social capacity building has been considered in the last decades an important element of rural development projects, as it helps organizations and communities to better use their resources, design and manage projects locally and improve their living standards. Social capacity building has been related to the development of certain skills and to the...

Entrepreneurial activity is positioned as the main promoter of technology transfer and innovation with a direct impact on economic development, and learning is considered an important factor in its configuration. In this context, and for the first time, a characterization and analysis is presented with the broad and diverse range of training to pro...

This paper shows a conceptual framework which synthesizes the evolution of the "modern project" and its dominant values, reaching to a new approach for the planning of rural development projects in the post-modernity: Working With People (WWP). The WWP model proposed is integrated into international discussions of "social learning" and it incorpora...

From the perspective of skills development, professional competences have become strategic elements to improve professional capacity to respond to work effective and efficiently, in order to achieve the expected results. This trend is not indifferent within educational projects, with special emphasis on principal´s educational leadership effects on...

The project and project management complexity has acquired growing interest. This research analyzes the dimensions of complexity in relation to rural development projects and the existing tools for evaluation. We present a novel methodological approach to assess two complementary aspects of project management: (a) the level of complexity of the pro...

Teamwork is one of the abilities that today is highly valued in the professional arena with a great importance for various personal and interpersonal skills associated with it. In this context, the Technical University of Madrid, is developing a coordinated educational innovation project, which main objective is to develop methodological and assess...

This article analyzes the progress of Industrial Engineering in Peru, the relationship to major trends in Europe and North America, and the projected outlook for the future. It is determined that the need for this engineering specialty includes a significant degree of resource management, and the formation of engineers through education requires no...

This article develops the conceptual goals of professional competences as well the origin of competences and the evolution of the concept. Responses are given to common questions such as: "what are competences really?", "what do they involve?", and "why is their importance growing?" The results of this investigation are shown through five models of...

The article proposes a collaborative model, the result of an interdisciplinary study, which aims to promote a change in the methodology of learning professional competences in the field of project management and its subsequent certification. The model seeks to integrate a solid base of scientific, expert and experienced knowledge, supplemented with...

This paper addresses the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training Sustainable Rural Development & Project Management in postgraduate programs. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program for Sustainable Rural Development — Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities o...

Educational decentralization has transformed the roles and responsibilities of all education actors. Particularly, the role of principals and school leadership has become lately a focus of attention for their direct and indirect effects on educational outcomes. From the perspective of competence development, professional certification has become an...

The acquisition of technical, contextual and behavioral competences is a prerequisite for sustainable development and strengthening of rural communities. Territorial display of the status of these skills helps to design the necessary learning, so its inclusion in planning processes is useful for decision making. The article discusses the applicatio...

Experiences relating to the International Masters in Rural Development from the Technical University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM), the first Spanish programme to receive a mention as a Registered Education Programme by International Project Management Association (IPMA) are considered. Backed by an educational strategy based o...