Aurelia Schütz
Aurelia Schütz completed her bachelor's degree in equine business at Nürtingen-Geislingen University (HFWU) in 2015. As part of her thesis, she conducted an experimental study on cross-species social learning in horses, which sparked her interest in scientific research. She then moved from her Swabian homeland to Göttingen, where she successfully completed her master's degree in agricultural sciences with focus on agribusiness in 2018. Even though she switched from horses to pigs for her master's thesis, this did not affect her interest in scientific research and she decided to pursue a PhD. Thus, Aurelia Schütz became a PhD student at the Chair of Marketing for Food and Agricultural Products in 2018, where she is working on the social perception and evaluation of livestock farming - especially pig farming.
Research focus:
- Perception and evaluation of husbandry systems and animal welfare measures (i.e. environmental enrichment)
- Dealing with trade-offs from a societal perspective
- Potential of innovative information tools (i.e. VR glasses) to increase transparency in livestock production
- Schütz, A., Kurz, K., & Busch, G. (2022). Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry. Plos one, 17(1), e0261248.
- Gesa Busch, Elisa Bayer, Sarah Iweala, Clara Mehlhose, Constanze Rubach, Aurelia Schütz, Konstanze Ullmann, Achim Spiller (2021): Einkaufs- und Ernährungsverhalten sowie Resilienz des Ernährungs-systems aus Sicht der Bevölkerung: Eine Studie während der Corona-Pandemie im November2020. Ergebnisse der dritten Befragungswelle, Diskussionsbeitrag Nr. 2102 desDepartments für Agrarökonomie und Rurale Entwicklung der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, April 2021.
- Schütz, A., Busch, G., Sonntag, W. (2020): Environmental enrichment in pig husbandry – Citizens’ ratings of pictures showing housing elements using an online-survey. Livestock Sciences, 240 Doi: 10.1016/j.livsci.2020.104218
- Von Meyer-Höfer, M., Schütz, A. und Winkel, C. (2019): For the future of pig farming – a transdisciplinary discourse organised as a future workshop: Journal of Sustainable and Organic Agricultural Systems.
- Environmental Enrichment in pig husbandry – Consumer comparative assessment of different housing elements based on a pictorial survey
Research projects:
Social Lab IIBarely a day goes by without critical reports about livestock production. Even though criticism varies greatly depending on the perspective: Only a small number of people are happy with the current situation. In order to address this issue and to find goal-oriented, balanced and ethically justifiable solutions, it is necessary to break down the criticism towards current types and practices of livestock production by different social groups in a sophisticated way and to better understand its numerous dimensions. This is the task of the joint project Sociallab II, where a total of eight partners have joined forces and are working together on five work packages following an interdisciplinary approach.
"Virtueller Stall der Zukunft - Neue Konzepte für die Schweinehaltung" (finished)
Both projects have been supported by Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) funds based on a decision taken by the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) within the scope of the innovation support program.