maarten Hajer

Biography

Maarten A. Hajer (1962) is distinguished professor of Urban Futures and Director of the Urban Futures Studio (www.uu.nl/ufs). Maarten is also the Scientific Director of the university-wide strategic theme 'Sustainability' and the lead author of its new programme, 'Pathways to Sustainability' (https://www.uu.nl/en/research/sustainability). Previously Hajer was professor of Public Policy at the University of Amsterdam (1998-2015) and Director-General of the PBL – Netherlands Environmental Asssessment Agency (2008-2015). Hajer holds MA degrees in Political Science and in Urban and Regional Planning (both University of Amsterdam) and got his D.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University. He is the author of over ten scholarly books, including The Politics of Environmental Discourse (Oxford UP, 1995), In Search of New Public Domain – Analysis and Strategy (NAi Publishers, 2001, together with Arnold Reijndorp), Deliberative Policy Analysis (Cambridge UP, 2003, eds. with Hendrik Wagenaar), Strong Stories – How the Dutch Reinvent their Planning Practice (Nai/010, 2010, with Suzanne van ‘t Klooster & Jantine Grijzen) and Authoritative Governance - Policy-making in the Age of Mediatization (Oxford UP, 2009). His most recent book is Smart about Cities – Visualizing the Challenge of 21st Century Urbanism (NAi/010, 2014), a critique of the prevalent discourse of smart cities and a call to connect new technological possibilities to a more encompassing agenda: the need to change the 'metabolism' of our cities. Maarten Hajer was elected Government Manager of the Year in 2014. He was Chief Curator of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2016 the results of which can be found here. He is a member of UNEP's International Resource Panel (IRP) for which he co-chairs the working group on Cities (together with Mark Swilling). He is Honorary Professor at the University of Copenhagen and Extra-Ordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Hajer is now the curator of a new exhibition, Places of Hope, part of Leeuwarden Culturele Hoofdstad 2018. This is an initiative of the Dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and the Environment.

Research Interest

Sustainability (strategic theme)