Prof. I.J. Visseren-Hamakers (Ingrid)

Prof. dr. Visseren-Hamakers serves as chair of the Environmental Governance and Politics (EGP) group, and is specialized in environmental governance. Her research is especially focused on transformative global environmental governance, and aims to contribute to both academic and the societal debates on how societies and economies can become sustainable, and how such transformative change is, and can be, governed.

To date, the research of Visseren has in particular contributed to the conceptualisation of the relationships between governance systems, among others by coining the concept of Integrative Governance.

The EGP chair group is a social scientific team of researchers that aims to critically reflect on and contribute to sustainability transformations. We develop useful insights into the why and how of such processes, which can serve to enable, accelerate, deepen and broaden the transformation towards a global sustainable society. For this purpose, we engage in research, teaching and collaboration with societal partners. We are specialized in (the relationships among) agriculture, animal, biodiversity, circular economy, climate change, energy, and freshwater governance. Since the chair group is embedded in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, we often approach sustainability issues from a spatial perspective. We focus on transdisciplinary research, incorporate futures studies, and mostly apply qualitative methods and comparative analyses. Theoretically, we mainly use discursive, institutional, and practice-based perspectives.