Professor René Kemp is an eco-innovation and sustainability transition researcher.
He conducts research into transitions to a circular economy, a low-carbon energy system and the governance of sustainability transitions. He does this from a multidisciplinary perspective with attention to path dependencies, contestation and institutional change.
He held research positions at DRIFT, TNO and Twente University and worked at STEP in Oslo (as research director) and is professor of Innovation and Sustainable Development at the Maastricht Sustainability Institute (since 2010).
He is advisory editor of Research Policy, editor of Sustainability Science and editor of Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. At Maastricht University, he co-leads the Maastricht Observatory on Resilient, Responsible & Sustainable Enterprise and Economy (MORSE) and at UNU-MERIT he leads the theme Sustainability and the Green and Circular Economy.
In the last 10 years, he developed a keen interest in the humanisation of the economy through transformative social innovation. For the Dutch government he developed the steering model of transition management, together with Jan Rotmans and Marjolein van Asselt, which received worldwide attention by academics and policy makers.
René belongs to the top 0.5% researchers in the field of environmental science in the world (https://www.merit.unu.edu/unu-merits-innovation-researchers-leading-on-global-ranking-of-scientists/ ). In the Domain of Social Sciences and Humanities, he is ranked 724 in the world. Nationally he is ranked 24 (https://research.com/u/rene-kemp).
He has published in innovation journals, environmental and ecological economics journals, policy journals, transport and energy journals, sustainable development journals and transition studies journals. He even published an article in a top biology journal (Philosophical Transactions – B) about how actors are myopically called in processes of co-evolution.
He likes jazz, reading, cycling and watching football (as fan of PSV Eindhoven).