Dr. Abe Hendriks is a researcher and lecturer at the Urban Futures Studio and the Innovation Studies section at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. As a researcher working at the intersection of political science and science and technology studies (STS), he studies how societies collectively imagine and shape desirable futures in the context of the grand challenges of our time, with a particular interest in political theory and philosophy of technology.

Prior to joining Utrecht University, he explored these questions in his PhD research at the University of Groningen and Ghent University, where he studied how the circular economy is imagined as a desirable future in different regions in Sweden in the Netherlands. During this period, he has been a recurring visiting researcher and lecturer at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland. After his PhD research, Abe has been conducting research at The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), investigating how Dutch society and policy domains envision the future of civic participation.

Currently, he is co-editing with Julius Wesche the Introduction to Sustainability Transitions Research (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, 2025). At the Urban Futures Studio, he is currently involved in Nederland Verbeeld(t) (the Netherlands Imagines), a research and public engagement project exploring how futuring can help tackle the Netherlands' pressing (spatial) challenges. 

Credits photo: Jonas Van Gaubergen