Maarten Hajer (1962) was trained as a political scientist (MA UvA 1988 Cum Laude) and as urban planner (UvA, 1987 Cum Laude), and received a D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford (1993) under the supervision of the geographer David Harvey. A further elaboration of his dissertation, The Politics of Environmental Discourse, which came out at Oxford University Press in 1995, is a highly cited text, both for its contribution to understanding the importance of language in politics and policy, as for its analysis of political dynamics in environmental politics. During the 1990s he worked as researcher at the Leyden Institute for Law and Public Policy (1991- 1993); as ‘wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter’ with Ulrich Beck at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich (1993-1996); and as senior researcher at the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), The Hague (1996-1998), where he was the lead author of the report 'Ruimtelijke Ontwikkelingspolitiek', after which he was appointed Chair at the UvA. In 2008 he was appointed as Director-General of the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency / Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, a 7 year post which he held until 2015. For his innovations and bridge-building as director of PBL he was elected Government Manager of the Year in 2014. After completing his term at PBL he came to Utrecht University where he started the Urban Futures Studio. In 2021 his team won the second prize of the Hoger Onderwijspremie from the Ministry for OC&W (Education, Culture and Science) for the 'Mixed Classroom', a newly created format in which MA students sit together in a class with policy makers.
Over the years he was active as curator of exhibition, such as the 2016 version of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) and Places of Hope which was part of the programme of Leeuwarden / Fryslan Cultural Capital of Europe in 2018.
He wrote columns for Het Parool and De Staatscourant and fulfilled many societal roles like as member of the Governing Board of the Amsterdam Arts Council and the Van Eesteren, Fluck van Lohuizen Stichting (EFL); as member of the VROMraad, the advisory board to the Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, The Hague; or as jury member and jury chair for the International Spinoza Price in philosophy; jury member for the EO Weijersprijsvraag in landscape architecture and for EUROPAN, the European price for architects under 35 or as member of the governing board of the Rotterdam Maaskant Prize for Architecture. He now is a member of the Supervisory Board of the NGO Natuur & Milieu.