Jan van Tatenhove

Jan van Tatenhove is a Personal Professor in Environmental Policy at Wageningen University, where he conducts influential research on marine governance, maritime spatial planning, and reflexive policy processes. His work emphasizes social learning, discourse dynamics, and transboundary environmental cooperation, particularly in European marine regions such as the North Sea.

• Position: Personal Professor
• Department: Environmental Policy
• Institution: Wageningen University

His research interests center on the governance of complex environmental systems, focusing on how institutions, actors, and discourses shape marine policy outcomes. Key themes include collaborative governance, the role of nonstate actors, and the use of innovative tools like serious games to facilitate stakeholder learning and coordination in spatial planning.

The recent trend in his scholarly output reveals a strong focus on reflexivity and transformative change in marine governance, analyzing how power structures, framing, and multi-level interactions influence sustainability transitions. His publications frequently appear in high-impact journals such as Marine Policy, Ocean and Coastal Management, and Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning.

Jan van Tatenhove has been actively involved in editorial roles, serving as guest editor for special issues in leading journals, contributing to the academic discourse in environmental policy and coastal management.

• Supervised PhD Projects: Shifting human-animal relations; Use of Serious Games in MSP; Arctic oil & gas governance; Sustainable ecosystem management in the Caribbean
• Key Grants and Projects: Governing Marine Futures (2017–2020); NorthSEE project on transboundary MSP coordination

He leads and contributes to major interdisciplinary research initiatives focused on marine futures, offshore energy development, and sustainable use of marine resources, often in collaboration with European partners and policymakers.