Prince Claus Chair

Chair of the Curatorium of the Prince Claus Chair
Bert Koenders is holding a chair on Peace, Justice and Security at Leiden University. He is chair of the Advisory Council on International Affairs, Senior Advisor for the World Bank and chair of the Max van der Stoel Foundation and commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons.

He is a former minister of Foreign Affairs and minister for Development Cooperation.

Moderator lustrum event

Lynn Zebeda has worked with partners on five continents on reimagining society. Her current company, Imaginal Agency, provides the tools to translate vision into action. Prior to that, Lynn co-founded design research agency Dr. Monk. Her dedication lies with the planetary and social challenges that connect us all.  When she’s not working on these themes herself, she enjoys questioning others about them as a moderator. She also serves on the board of several organizations that positively impact the future. Lynn holds an MA from ISS and a BAhons from University College Utrecht.

Moderator panel

Joyeeta Gupta is professor in environment and development in the global south at the University of Amsterdam and affiliated with the Delft institute for water education. She was a former co-chair of the UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6.

She is a widely respected and highly productive scientist and the lead author of numerous books and articles on the themes of environmental management and international development studies. The focus of her research is always on seeking to understand the relationships between the climate crisis, potential solutions and justice. For her research she brings together various scientific disciplines, from international law and economics to political science and environmental studies. In 2023 she received the very prestigious Spinoza prize for her academic work.

Amina Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group. 

Previously, Ms. Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where she steered the country’s efforts on climate action and efforts to protect the natural environment. 

Ms. Mohammed first joined the United Nations in 2012 as Special Adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the responsibility for post-2015 development planning. She led the process that resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.   

Bart van den Hurk is an expert in the field of weather and climate information currently working at Deltares as scientific Director. Before that he spent 23 years at the Dutch Meteorological Institute, working on climate change scenarios and land-atmosphere interaction. He is professor in the field of Interaction between Climate and the Socio-ecological system at the VU University Amsterdam. Bart is the co-chair for the 7^th assessment report of IPCC Working Group II on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities related to climate change.

Vera Songwe is a senior fellow in the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution. She is Chair and Founder of the Board of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility and Co-Chair of the High Level Expert Panel on Climate Finance. Before that, she was an Under-secretary-General at the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Her main areas of interest are fiscal policy, innovative financing mechanisms for development, agriculture, energy and economic governance.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. A passionate and longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality, Ms Byanyima leads the United Nations’ efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. She believes that health care is a human right.
Before joining UNAIDS, she served as the Executive Director of Oxfam International.

Sebastián as an associate professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile trained as a sociologist. He’s an academic who is truly interdisciplinary, combining Science and Technology Studies with the social sciences, especially sociology and anthropology. He also develops the concept of citizen science further with tools that enable community participation in evaluating the soils in their vicinity and taking action to address contamination.

Fatima is currently the director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA) in Accra, Ghana, which she joined in 2018. She is a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on climate change and land and vice-chair of IPCC Working Group II on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities related to climate change. She holds a PhD in political science from Birmingham University.

Khayaat is a sociologist with a focus on research in women’s care for others and the environment. She gained her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is currently a senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University and teaches modules on sociology of work, feminisms and women’s engagement in the South African economy. 

Seye is a health systems researcher from Nigeria. He is currently a senior lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney in Australia. He had his initial training in medicine at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in Nigeria and gained his PhD from Sydney University, on a wide-ranging institutional analysis of primary health care governance in Nigeria. 

Gustavo is a political scientist from Puerto Rico. He is currently a researcher at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra in Portugal where he forms part of the Ecology and Society Workshop (ECOSOC). His work centers on transformative eco-social initiatives and movements, connecting to ideas of the commons, autogestion, insurgent ecologies, environmental/climate justice, and just transitions Gustavo gained his PhD from Indiana University in 2012, where he was a member of Elinor Ostrom’s research group. 

Veena is a water expert with 20 years of experience working with water management in India.  She is currently the Executive Director of WELL (Water, Environment, Land and Livelihoods) Labs, a new research and innovation centre at IFMR, in collaboration with Krea University, established for research and innovation for societal impact in the area of land and water sustainability. She is a senior fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in Bangalore, where she leads the Centre for Social and Environmental Innovation (CSEI).

Bert Koenders is holding a chair on Peace, Justice and Security at Leiden University. He is chair of the Advisory Council on International Affairs, Senior Advisor for the World Bank and chair of the Max van der Stoel Foundation and commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons. 

He is a former minister of Foreign Affairs and minister for Development Cooperation. 

Joyeeta Gupta is professor in environment and development in the global south at the University of Amsterdam and affiliated with the Delft institute for water education. She was a former co-chair of the UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6. 

She is a widely respected and highly productive scientist and the lead author of numerous books and articles on the themes of environmental management and international development studies. The focus of her research is always on seeking to understand the relationships between the climate crisis, potential solutions and justice. For her research she brings together various scientific disciplines, from international law and economics to political science and environmental studies. 

In 2023 she received the very prestigious Spinoza prize for her academic work. 

Henk Kummeling has been Rector Magnificus of Utrecht University since 1 June 2018. He studied law in Nijmegen and obtained his doctorate there in 1988. This was followed by an appointment as a Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Tilburg University. Henk Kummeling has been a Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at Utrecht University since 1995. Between 2008 and 2014, he was Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics, Governance and Organisation. He was also President of the Dutch Electoral Council from 2005 to 2017. 

Ruard Ganzevoort is the rector of the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague (affiliated to the Erasmus University Rotterdam), since 15-08-2023. Before that he was the dean of the Faculty of Theology, professor of practical theology, and chief diversity officer at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His main areas of interest in the field of religion and development are trauma, sexuality, conflict, identity, and popular culture. From June 2011 to June 2023, he served for three consecutive terms as a member of the Senate in the Dutch national parliament for the Green party (GroenLinks). 

Rianne Giethoorn studied law at Utrecht University. After her studies, she worked at various commercial institutions. She has been back at UU since 2004, first as research coordinator and policy advisor at the faculty of Humanities. In 2019, she switched to academic affairs at central level, where she has been secretary of the PCC curatorium since 2021. 

She is also manager of CHARM EU, a European University Alliance of which the UU is a partner. 

Through Lisette’s poetry, she searches for her own identity, as a Brussels citizen, as a Dutchwoman, as a young person, as a woman and with roots in Rwanda. In 2017, she became Belgian Slam Poetry champion and won silver at the European Championships in 2018 and similarly at the Rio Poetry Slam championship in Rio de Janeiro. Meanwhile, she completed her Master’s in film studies in Brussels and is now working with her band on a first full-length poetry show of her own.

Dekoor consists of thirty young musicians from Utrecht with a shared passion: close harmony. Together, they combine their talents and voices to produce a unique sound. From subdued pop ballads to swinging jazz and from inspiring gospel to classical excursions; Dekoor is not afraid of anything and goes beyond the beaten track of the choral world.

‍Dekoor does not let itself be limited and tries to put on an appropriate performance everywhere. Thus, the choir performed with its own show in more than 25 Dutch theatres and the group was at Sziget Festival in Hungary twice and one of their most memorable collaborations was with The Rolling Stones on the biggest stages of Pinkpop and Rock Werchter. Dekoor has won the World Choir Games four times in the pop and jazz categories. Last summer, the best gospel choir category was added.