D. Huitema

Biography

Dr Dave Huitema is Professor of Environmental Policy at the Netherlands Open University and the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is deputy chair of the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis at the IVM. His research interests include policy learning & experimentation, policy entrepreneurs, policy innovation in polycentric systems, the and bioregional approach in environmental governance. Huitema is also leader of the research cluster on adaptive governance. In this group, Huitema works with about 15 colleagues from the IVM and other institutions, and he acts as supervisor (“promotor”) of eight PhD students and two postdoctoral researchers. The Cluster actively engages with discussions in the Earth System Governance network and the Resilience Alliance. The key issue that his group engages with is the adaptability of policy systems. For policy systems to be adaptable, learning needs to take place and agency needs to be developed to translate learning in policy change. This is why he and his team members are analyzing for example the role of experiments, evaluation, and entrepreneurs in learning and innovation. The group was host to the International Workshop on Entrepreneurship in Climate Governance (Amsterdam, June 2015), the Governance of Adaptation Symposium in Amsterdam (March 2012) and maintains the Water Governance Blog. Huitema is Vice-Chair of COST Action ‘Innovations in Climate Governance’, which spans 29 countries (IS1309, co-chaired with Andrew Jordan). He has served as Director of Teaching in the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis at IVM, and is a member of the editorial board of six academic journals (including "Ecology and Society" and “Global Environmental Change”). He has worked in a number of large scale research efforts funded by the European Union (The recently started CAPLO project, Cecilia2050, LUC4C, Combioserve, Responses, LiveDiverse, ADAM, NeWater) and the Dutch Government (Knowledge for Climate, Living with Water). Huitema has extensive international experience – he has been a visiting scholar to the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at University of California at Santa Barbara (2005 - visiting with Professor Oran Young), the Centre for Environmental Research and Training, University of Birmingham-UK (2000 - with Professor Judith Petts); the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University-Canada (1999 - with Professor Audrey Armour), the Department of Government, University of Essex-UK (1997 - with Professor Jeremy Richardson), and the Department of Political Science, University of Florida-USA (1996 - with Professor Walter Rosenbaum). He has done research in a range of countries, including Canada, the USA, the UK, Poland, Spain, Costa Rica, South Africa, and Vietnam. Huitema is author and (co-editor) of several books and many peer reviewed articles on issues related to environmental governance. He is recipient of the Lasswell Award for best article in the journal Policy Sciences (2012), the Van Poelje prize for the best Dutch publication in the field of Public Administration (2004), and the Brasz prize for the best masters' thesis in Dutch Public Administration (1994).

Research Interest

Environmental Policy Analysis