Évora cheese production systems: teaching and learning with a university-enterprise cooperation.

Abstract

ÉVORA CHEESE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS: TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH A UNIVERSITY-ENTERPRISE COOPERATION Cristina Conceição1,2, Flávio Silva1, Ana Lúcia Garrido1, Graça Machado1,2, Maria Eduarda Potes 1,3 1Departamento de Zootecnia, Universidade de Évora, Portugal; 2ICAAM, Universidade de Évora, Portugal; 3Departamento de Medicina Veterinária, Universidade de Évora, Portugal ABSTRACT Academic education is a multifactorial process with the purpose of acquiring knowledge, values and skills, through collecting information, teaching, discussion, training and research. Over the years, the research lines and consequent teaching on the subject of Évora cheese production systems has been approached in a holistic way. The link between the university and cheese factories has been passed on to students, concerning four steps of investigation: identification of research problem; hypothesis; data collecting; results and conclusions. According to Gilles and Lawrence (1) the quality of a cheese is determined by its physical biochemical, microbiological and sensory characteristics. The relative importance of these characteristics varies according to the type of cheese and is based on the animal production systems and technology of process that determines the specific features of Évora cheese (2,3). Several research projects have been carried out with the purpose of discriminating the factors that confer specific “typical” characteristics of a product originated from a “terroir”, outcoming PhD thesis, MSc dissertations, traineeships, articles peer-review, index journals, publications in the book of abstracts and also several communications in national and international symposiums. Keywords: Évora cheese, milk, system production, microbiology