Annelien Bredenoord is the new Rector Magnificus of EUR from 1 October 2021. She is responsible for education, research and impact, including academic staff (policy), students and science education. The appointment is for a period of four years.
Annelien Bredenoord is a professor, member of the Dutch Senate, supervisory authority and director and works at the interface of healthcare, technology and innovation, ethics and politics.
"I very much believe in the social role that a university has. We need science to find answers to the complex questions of our time."
Until her appointment, Bredenoord headed the Department of Medical Humanities at UMC Utrecht, an interdisciplinary department containing ethicists, health lawyers, medical historians and narrative medicine: using stories from both patients and healthcare professionals to make healthcare more humane. Her research group focuses on ethical and social questions surrounding new, often controversial technology, such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and biobanks, regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and stem cell research, genetics (such as CRISPR/Cas) reproductive technologies.
"I very much believe in the social role that a university has. We need science to find answers to the complex questions of our time, such as climate change, polarisation, digitalisation, technological innovation, demographic developments and social inequality. Both the DNA of the EUR and its location in the Rotterdam metropolitan region offers an excellent starting point to address such issues from an interdisciplinary perspective and close to everyday reality," says Annelien Bredenoord.
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Interview Annelien Bredenoord Opening Academic Year 2021-2022
New Rector Magnificus: Annelien Bredenoord
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Background
Bredenoord studied theology and political science at Leiden University and obtained her doctorate in medical ethics at Maastricht University in 2010. In 2014 Bredenoord was installed as a member of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2017 she was appointed professor of Ethics of Biomedical Innovation at UMC Utrecht.
Prof. Bredenoord has held many administrative/advisory positions during her academic career, including for the ZonMw board and with the Supervisory Board of Amsterdam UMC, and has gained a great deal of social and managerial experience. In addition, she has been a member of the Senate for D66 since 2015 and parliamentary group chair since 2019.
