Professor of Governance of Sustainability Eefje Cuppen researches sustainability transitions and takes social values such as equity and equality into account. How, for example, can we reduce CO2 in a way that is fair?

Michiel Veldhuis is looking for answers that our world urgently needs. As an ecologist working on the Liveable Planet interdisciplinary programme, he researches the impact of global climate change on the African savanna.

On a sunny Saturday, 15 nominees came to the Kamerlingh Onnes building to hear who had won the Schild-de Groen Research Prizes and the Leiden University Thesis Prizes. The stunning Lorentz Hall filled with family, friends, donors and thesis supervisors.

Dominique Moïsi, a professor at King’s College London, will be the first holder of the Owada chair. ‘In the present international context of polarisation and divisions within societies and amongst nations, any effort at bringing Asia and Europe closer to each other is truly important.’

Assistant Professor Maarten Schrama works at Leiden University’s living labs, where biology, environmental sciences and knowledge about agriculture and policy come together. We met him at the new Polderlab to ask him about his research.