Profile

Anne Loeber is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. Her research centres on the dynamics in agricultural and food safety policies in Europe, sustainable development, participatory policy analysis and learning strategies.

Loeber holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (University of Amsterdam, 2004), based on a thesis on interactive Technology Assessment and its potential contribution to making the 'sustainable development' concept operational in public policy and business. The thesis was awarded the second prize in the 2005 annual Political Science Award competition of the Dutch Political Science Association for the best PhDthesis in the field.

New publication: Science as Culture - a special issue on Agro-food Crises

• Science as Culture - special issue on crises in agriculture and food

Upcoming publication

Food Practices in Transition. Changing Food Consumption, Retail and Production in the Age of Reflexive Modernity Eds.: G. Spaargaren, P.Oosterveer, A. Loeber. Routledge

• sustainability transitions - food

Current and recent research projects

2009- 2012: Impact of Citizen Participation on Decision-Making in a Knowledge Intensive Policy Field (CIT-PART). A EU-funded project in EC FP7-SSH-2007-1, theme 8, the CIT-PART project sets out to study the impact on policy-making of citizen participation in regard toahighly controversial and technologicallycomplex policy issue in an internationally comparative manner. CIT-PART is an internationally comparative evaluation (including seven member states and a non-member country, as well as the Commission, the OECD and the Holy See) of institutionalised citizen participation (Participatory Technology Assessment, PTA) designed in view of the challenge of xenotransplantation (XTP). XTP stands for the transplantation of animal organs, tissues or cells to humans.   Focusing on governance as "social practice", the CIT-PART project assumes that the impact of citizen participation on decision-making is not only dependent on the quality of the PTA process itself but on practices of policy makers in which PTA is embedded.

2007 - 2009, Loeber worked as post-doctoral researcher in the project on 'Reflexive Design: Practices for Defining System Innovation' coordinated by Prof. dr. J. Grin at the Political Science Department, University of Amsterdam . This research project was embedded in the research programme of the Dutch Knowledge network on System Innovations (KSI). Her research focused on the legitimacy of innovative governance and knowledge generating practices that aspire long-term societal transformations from a sustainable perspective.

2004-2007: Participatory Governance and Institutional Innovation (PAGANINI). A 6th Framework (EU-financed) Programme for Research and Technology, the PAGANINI-project set out to investigate empirically the ways in which participatory governance is becoming a component of the European polity in regard to highly sensitive, value-laden, and technically and ethically complex policy issues. It hypothesized that novel modes of governance can be seen todevelop whentraditional mechanisms of policymaking fail to provide legitimate and effectiveapproaches to dealing with what is called the "politics of life": medicine, health, food, energy andenvironment. Loeber was, together with Prof. Maarten Hajer of the UvA Political Science Department, responsible for designing the project's theoretical and methodical framework, and for empirical research on forms of participatory governance in the area of food safety and agriculture in the UK, in the Netherlands, in Germany and on the level of the EU in the aftermath of BSE and other food scares of the 1990s-2000s.

2001-2004: Evaluation and Monitoring of the National Initiative for Sustainable Development (NIDO; Nationaal Initiatief Duurzame Ontwikkeling). Commissioned by NIDO, a highly experimental, temporary, publicly funded organisation operating at arm's length of government, the Evaluation and Monitoring Project (EMP) sought to map and analyze the 2-3 year programmes which the organization coordinated in a variety of fields (ranging from corporate social responsibility to water management) in order to realize its objective: to "structurally anchor" initiatives that would facilitate "a jump-start" of a transition   towards a sustainable development in Dutch society. To relate the various programmes to one another in a fruitful manner and to enable lesson-drawing across the different fields, Loeber developed a framework for systematizing programme description and analysis, labeled   the 'view master', as well as a method for transferring lessons from one domain of   'transition management' to another. A major product of the project is a web-based overview of lessons learnt, dedicated to future 'transition practitioners'.

• KSI KennisnetwerkSysteeminnovaties

• Paganini project - participatory governance and institutional innovation

• CIT-PART project on xenotransplantation

• Transitimanagement: 'Inbreken in het gangbare'

Selected publications

• Laws, David and Anne Loeber (2011) Sustainable development and professional practice: Dilemmas of actionand strategies for coping.  Engineering Sustainability , March issue, 164(1).
• Loeber, Anne (2010) Evaluation as Policy Work: Puzzling and Powering in a Dutch Program forSustainable Development. In Hal Colebatch, Rob Hoppe and Mirko Noordegraaf (Eds.), Working for Policy . Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 131-158 .
• Loeber, A. (2007) Designing for phronèsis: experiences with transformative learning on sustainable development. Critical Policy Studies , 1 ( 4), 389-414
  
• Loeber, Anne, Barbara van Mierlo, Cees Leeuwis, John Grin (2007) The practical value of theory: conceptualizing learning in the pursuit of a sustainable development. In: A. Wals & T. van der Leij (eds.) Social Learning toward a more Sustainable World: Principles, Perspectives, and Praxis . Wageningen Academic Publishers. pp 83-98
• John Grin and Anne Loeber (2006) Theories of Policy Learning: Agency, Structure and Change. In: Frank Fischer, Gerald Miller, and Mara Sidney (eds.) Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics, and Methods. London etc.: Taylor and Francis.
  
• Cramer , Jacqueline and Anne Loeber (2004) Governance through Learning: Making Corporate Social Responsibility in Dutch Industry Effective From a Sustainable Development Perspective Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning Vol. 6, No. 3/4, pp.1-17.

Policy advice, editorial positions and other recent academic activities

Anne Loeber is:

• Member ofthe Platform Landbouw, Innovatie & Samenleving,which advises the minister of agriculture -- now part of the ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (EL&I) --  on issues regarding (sustainable) agriculture, socio-technological innovations and public management.
• Member of the editorial board of the Dutch-language annual journal on knowledge production and utilization in science and society, Jaarboek KennisSamenleving.
• Guest editor for a Special Issue on agri-food crises of Science as Culture , Summer 2011.

• LNV - Platform Landbouw, Innovatie en Samenleving

• Platform Landbouw, Innoratie en Samenlev
  Lid van Adviesraad Platform LI&S