Prof. dr. Annelies Zoomers

“Climate change and COVID-19 make us aware of new risks and vulnerabilities - there is an urgent need to develop system thinking together on the transition towards a more inclusive and sustainable society.”

Research focus: Livelihood and impact assessment, international migration, land governance and climate adaptation strategies

Annelies (E.B.) Zoomers is professor of International Development Studies (IDS) at Utrecht University, and member of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV). She is the co-founder of the Netherlands Land academy LANDac and Shared Value Foundation (SVF).

Focus on revitalizing shrinking areas by hosting non-EU migrants

Zoomers is principal investigator of the H2020 project called ‘Welcoming Spaces’: investing in revitalizing shrinking areas by hosting non-EU migrants. The project investigates new ways to merge two policy challenges: contribute to the revitalization of shrinking areas in Europe, while also offering space for the successful integration of non-EU migrants. We do bottom-up field research in fifty examples of ‘Welcoming Spaces’ in Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands: declining areas which are currently collaborating with migrants as a strategy to ‘revitalize and improve the situation.

‘Diamonds in the delta’ and LANDac’s ‘professional learning program’ (PLP)

Zoomers is actively engaged to contribute to consortium building and setting up learning networks related to various topics. ‘Diamonds in the delta’ focuses on contributing to a more people-centered and context sensitive approach in delta planning; the PLP’s focus is to critically assess large scale land investments currently taking place in various African countries and optimizing the developmental impact.

Background

After finishing her PhD in 1988, she worked for ECORYS (Rotterdam) and the Royal Tropical Institute (Amsterdam) on long- and short-term consulting assignments for various organizations (e.g. the World Bank, IFAD, ILO, EU, DGIS) in various countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Between 1995 and 2007 she was associate professor at the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (Amsterdam). Between 2005 and 2009 she was professor of International Migration at the Radboud University (Nijmegen). She was the chair of WOTRO Science for Global Development (NWO) between 2019 and 2022; and has published extensively on sustainable livelihoods and poverty alleviation, the global land rush and international migration.

 

Chair
Human Geography - International Development Studies
Inaugural lecture date
27.11.2008