Welcome at my page - I am Professor of Innovations in Crisis Management and Societal Resilience in the Faculty of Social Sciences, part-time seconded to the Faculty of Science.

I am co-founder of the Crisis Resilience Academy of the Institute for Societal Resilience. I was elected board member of the Association Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) from 2016 - 2022. Since 2019 I am member of the steering committee of KUNO: Platform for Humanitarian Knowledge Exchange. I was visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the USA, and at the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) of the University of the Free State in South Africa.

Research Agenda

In my research I use my background in Science and Technology Studies (STS) to study crisis and disaster governance and societial resilience in relation to grand challenges. You can find the text of my Inaugural lecture here in Dutch and here in English. I did research and taught on crisis management, organizational change and societial resilience in different parts of the world including Nepal, the Philippines, China and Japan, Malawi and South Africa, the USA and in various countries across Europe.

I was research manager of the program Organization & Processes of Organizing in Society (OPOS). Currenlty I am member of the Research Assessment Board, Faculty of Social Sciences.

I have been expert member of various advisory committees on crisis-governance, crisis evaluation, and societal resilience including those of the WODC (the Research and Documentation Centre of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security), the NIPV (the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety), the LOT-C (National Operational Team Covid), the Dutch Parliament, the EU JRC (Joint Research Center) and various EU committees including the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) in this policy brief. 

I am research proposal evaluator and pre-advisor of the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and of other National Science Foundations including those of Belgium, Canada, Finland, Norway, Switzerland and South Africa.

Teaching

My courses are related to topics such as organizational theory, physical safety, crisis and disaster governance, innovation management, and organizational culture. I teach at Bachelor's, Master's and Graduate School Level and hold University Teaching Qualification (BKO) and Senior Qualification Teaching (SKO) certificates. I served the Master's Programmes Science, Business and Innovation (SBI), Culture, Organization and Management (COM) and Policy, Communication and Organizations (BCO) as director. I was member of the Programme Committe SBI and of the Examination Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences for serveral years.

Current courses

Graduate School

• 'Selected Qualitative Methods', Graduate School of Social Sciences

Master's

• 'Organization and Power', master's COM and BCO
• 'Changing Organizational Culture', master's COM
• 'Fysieke Veiligheid en Crisisbeheersing', master's Public Administration 
• 'Foundations of Societal Resilience', Research Master SSDS
• 'Research Methodology', master's SBI
• 'Master thesis project', SBI

Bachelor's

• 'Bachelor thesis project', bachelor's SBI
• 'Theories of Technology Venture Creation', pre-master's SBI
• 'Confronting Commodity Chains'; bachelor's Faculty of Social Sciences

Current grants (selection)

• Grant from the Chile “Concurso de Fomento a la Vinculación Internacional para Instituciones de Investigación, convocatoria 2024”, Territories and risk governance: strengthening inter-discipline to prevent socio-natural disasters, main applicant dr. Ricardo Fuentealba (University of O'Higgins), with dr. Nathan Clark (VU Amsterdam) and dr. Emmanuel Raju (University of Copenhagen), 30 K€

• 2023-2026: EU Horizon grant: "SYNERGIES: Innovating Preparedness by Leveraging Synergied and Enhancing Results of DRM Projects", WP leader with dr. Nathan Clark. Grant: €5.0M. VUA budget: €500K.

• 2022-2024: NWO/NWA grant: "Institutional Resilience, Organizational Healing, and Adaptive Capacity in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic", project in a larger grant on BASICS for Resilience Building Adaptive, Collaborative, and Inclusive Capacities for Resilient Societies. With dr. Lianne Cremers and Cato Janssen. Budget: €100K.

• 2023-2027: Project on Adaptive Basic Police Training. Funded by the TNO programme Weerbaar en Wendbaar. Project members: Grietje Smit (PhD candidate), prof.dr. Sierk Ybema & dr. Michiel Verver (VU), dr. H. Duijnhoven & dr. R. Delahaij (TNO), prof. dr. Annika Smit, Politieacademie. Budget: €150K.

Previous grants (selection)

• 2020-2024: PI of the EU Horizon 2020 grant "LINKS: Strengthening links between technologies and society for European disaster resilience", with 16 partners from 7 European countries and Japan. Grant: €5.2M
• 2020-2023: Work Package leader on multi-layered disaster governance in the EU Horizon 2020 CORONAVIRUS grant "HERoS: Health Emergency Response in Interconnected Systems", with 10 partners from 7 European countries. Grant: €2.8M. Work Package on Disaster Governance budget: €375K
• 2014-2019: PI of the NWO (The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) grant on “Enhancing Smart Disaster Governance: Assessing the potential of the net-centric approach.” Co-financed by 4 Safety Regions, the Institute for Physical Safety (IFV) and Oxfam Novib and Cordaid. Grant: €700K
• 2019: Leader of the co-creation project Amsterdam Living Lab: a resilience approach to crisis management and communication. With the Municipality Amsterdam, Safety Region Amsterdam Amstelland and the Institute for Societal Resilience. Budget €50K
• 2015: project "CAPFLO Local Resilience Capacity Building for Flood Mitigation", co-applicant. Main applicant: prof.dr. Dave Huitema. With the EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection programme. Grant: €100K
• 2011: project on Cultural Change in Netcentric Operations. Main applicant and PI. Funded by the Platform Netcentric Operations. Grant: €55K

Awards

• 2022: Best paper award in Risk and Resilience by Esmee Peters, Louise Knight, Kees Boersma and Niels Uenk. “Managing medical product supply in times of crisis”. Awarded by: Supply Chain and Resilience Research Institute
• 2018: Best PhD Supervisor Award, Graduate School Faculty of Social Sciences
• 2018: Distinguished Service Award ISCRAM Association
• 2017: Outstanding contribution in reviewing for International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
• 2016: Bi-annual senior research award of the Faculty of Social Sciences for the research project Smart Disaster Governance
• 2014/18: Various grants from the Institute for Societal Resilience for research projects on crisis management, safety and security
• 2006: Research grant Center for Comparative Social Science (CCSS), Amsterdam
• 2002: EBHA Dissertation Award, awarded in Helsinki, Finland

Supervised PhD candidates as (co)promotor

Realized:

• Dianka Zuiderwijk. Thesis:  Reliability beyond Design. Promotor with prof.dr. Peter Groenewegen. 13 November 2024
• Robert Larruina. Thesis: The Winding Road to Meaningful Integration: A Ten-Year Multi-Perspective Approach to Unraveling Refugee Reception and Integration in the Netherlands. Promotor with prof.dr. Halleh Ghorashi. 24 March 2023
• Christian Reuter. Thesis: A European Perspective on Crisis Informatics. Citizens’ and Authorities’ attitudes towards Social Media for Public Safety and Security. Promotor with prof.dr. Ira Helsloot. Radboud University Nijmegen. 11 October 2022
• Willem Treurniet. Thesis: Between Chaos and Continuity. A Common Operational Picture in Support of Emergency Response Networks. Amsterdam. Promotor with prof.dr. Peter Groenewegen.7 September 2022
• Rosanne Anholt. Thesis: Governing (In)Security: Perspectives and Understandings of Resilience in Practice. Co-promotor; prof.dr. Wolfgang Wagner (promotor) and dr. Ronald van Steden (co-promotor). Amsterdam. 11 January 2022
• Arjen Schmidt. Thesis: Turbulent Societies. How Governments Can Respond to the Mobilization of Societal Actors during Crises. Co-promotor; prof.dr. Peter Groenewegen and prof.dr. Arjen Boin (promotors). 27 November 2019
• Jeroen Wolbers. Thesis: Cross-Boundary Coordination in Emergency Response. Co-promotor; prof.dr. Peter Groenewegen (promotor). Amsterdam. 7 January 2016 (cum laude)
• Léonore van den Ende. Thesis: The power of transition rituals in complex construction projects. Co-promotor; prof.dr. Alfons van Marrewijk (promotor). 25 November 2015.
• Han Bakker. Thesis: Idea Management. Unravelling creative processes in three professional organizations. Co-promotor; prof.dr. Marcel Veenswijk (promotor). 6 December 2010
• Hanneke Duijnhoven. Thesis: For Security Reasons. Narratives about Security Practices and Organizational Change in the Dutch and Spanish Railway Sector. Co-promotor; prof.dr. Marcel Veenswijk (promotor). 21 April 2010

• KUNO: Platform for Humanitarian Knowledge Exchange in the Netherlands | Den Haag | Bestuurder | 2020-06-30 - present

Ancillary activities are updated daily