Anne Beaulieu is professor of Knowledge Infrastructures for Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development at Utrecht University. Between 2021 and 2025, she held the Aletta Jacobs Chair of Knowledge Infrastructures at the University of Groningen.
Beaulieu’s work focuses on complexity and transformation in knowledge infrastructures for biodiversity and climate, with particular attention to digital data, data flows and interfaces for the creation and circulation of knowledge. This means innovating and adapting knowledge infrastructures to foster engagement, accountability and reflexivity in knowledge production and circulation, in order to contribute to more effective action for biodiversity.
She has contributed to transformation of knowledge infrastructures through co-creation and design of different tools and interfaces for research, as well as through shaping research agendas and opening up discussions with a range of research articles and position pieces. This approach to research has been further consolidated in a number of books that address the use of digital technologies for research, collaboration and intervention, including : Revealing Relations: Knowledge Infrastructures for Liveable Futures (2026, Bristol University Press), Data and Society: A Critical Introduction (Sage, 2022), Smart Grids from a Global Perspective (2016, Springer), and Virtual Knowledge: Experimenting in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2012, MIT Press).
This work contributes to addressing pressing societal challenges, and Beaulieu has served as a member of various boards where knowledge institutions and society are connected (Studium Generale Groningen and of Studium Generale Leeuwarden, NIAS-Lorentz Advisory Board, Data Friesland). She has also contributed to the implementation of new forms of knowledge production and novel uses of data, through chairing and partaking in programme and evaluation committees (Chair NWO committee/NWO beoordelingscommissie ‘KIC Samenwerking in missiegedreven innovatie'; Member, ZonMw committee ‘Bevorderen van Verantwoorde Onderzoekspraktijken (BVO).
In order to ensure circulation of important knowledge beyond academic institutions, Beaulieu has championed the creation of novel platforms and spaces for dissemination and interaction. She served as advisor on the development of novel platforms as a Member of the Editorial board of APRIA (ARTEZ Platform for Research Interventions of the Arts, 2020-2024). In the context of the national graduate school WTMC, Beaulieu initiated and successfully set up the Series on Learning and Teaching STS which has been appearing 3x year since 2018. Beaulieu also established the series Liveable Futures in March 2024 and chair its editorial board (Leuven University Press).