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Hens Runhaar appointed Professor of Management of Biodiversity and Agricultural Landscapes

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July 2, 2015

Hens Runhaar has been appointed as Special Professor of Management of Biodiversity and Agricultural Landscapes at Wageningen University. Runhaar specialises in public administration and will be involved in the development and management of biodiversity in the agrarian cultural landscape. He will be doing this within Professor Bas Arts’ Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group.

There is a great deal of discussion in society about agrarian nature conservation. The greening of agriculture in general and concern about biodiversity in particular have the full attention of politicians, industry and the general public. The new policy for agrarian nature conservation focuses on larger units, farmers’ collectives and links to the National Ecological Network as well as showing more interest in soil and climate. This new approach is, however, still taking shape and is nowhere near implementation. Hens Runhaar: “I would like to contribute to this process by doing research from both a policy and a social economic angle. I would also like to combine a landscape approach with network control and supply chain management. This is why I am particularly interested in the often controversial role of knowledge in policy issues and in ways of bringing know-how and practice closer together.”

The innovative idea behind this chair is the link to both an academic and a practice-based group. The former ensures scientific context while the latter guarantees societal relevance. Runhaar can rely on the support of the foundation that initiated the chair. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is the most important financer of the chair, the academic group and the practitioners.

Professor Hens Runhaar (1971) specialises in environmental policy analysis. Since 1995 he has conducted research on several policy areas such as transport and logistics, sustainable urban development, nature conservation and biodiversity, environmental health risks and climate adaptation. He has been employed by various universities (Erasmus University Rotterdam, TU Delft) and consultancy firms. He will combine the 0.4 FTE part-time post as Special Professor at Wageningen University with a part-time post as Associate Professor at Utrecht University.