CUES Project at WOIC 2025

The CUES Project team from Eindhoven University of Technology, represented by Maral Mahdad and Sepide Mehrabi, participated at WOIC 2025 in Bilbao, Spain, from November 5th to 7th.

In the Meet-the-Editors Shark Tank session, the TU/e team presented the study “Digital Transparency and Traceability for Business Model Innovation and Value Chain Transformation” and received valuable feedback from:

• Mehdi Bagherzadeh Niri, Technovation

• Gerda Gemser, Journal of Product Innovation Management

• Paavo Ritala, R&D Management

We thank them for their constructive input, which strengthens the CUES work on transparency, traceability, and trustworthiness in agri-food systems.

The event offered a strong setting for discussing how digital tools support openness and accountability across value chains.

Our contribution highlighted how sensors, blockchain applications, and traceability platforms are becoming essential for building trust in agri-food systems. Their adoption changes how information flows, how coordination takes place, and how responsibilities are distributed. As digital transparency expands, value chains reorganise: new data-driven actors emerge, traditional intermediaries decline, and firms must adapt their strategic positions in more interconnected systems.

This work is based on survey data from more than 300 agri-food small and medium-sized enterprises across eight European countries, providing evidence on how digital transparency and traceability tools reshape collaboration, market interactions, and expectations of trustworthiness.

Core message for CUES: when transparency and traceability become digital, they do more than reveal information. They transform how value chains function and how trust is built.

Stay tuned for more updates from CUES!