Geert de Snoo is the new director of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). He will take over on 1 November from Louise Vet, who - after a twenty-year tenure as NIOO director - intends to devote herself to the broader importance of ecology to society.

Geert de Snoo is currently Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Conservation Biology at Leiden University. His research and teaching interests include biodiversity and sustainability in rural areas.  

He studied at VU Amsterdam and obtained his PhD at Leiden University. In Leiden, he conducts research into biodiversity, the impact of chemicals on biodiversity, nature management on farmland and the transition towards sustainable agriculture.

Previously, De Snoo was scientific director of the Centre for Environmental Sciences at Leiden University, Professor of Nature Conservation on Farmland at Wageningen University & Research, and founder of the Centre for Sustainability: a partnership between Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam.

De Snoo is also a member of the Council on Animal Affairs (RDA), and a board member of several science-driven organisations, including NOVA (Netherlands Research School for Astronomy), LERU (League of European Research Universities) and NCOH (Netherlands Centre for One Health).

The advisory committee on appointments has hailed De Snoo's capacity for strategic reasoning, his managerial acumen, his national and international networks and his ability to connect people and get them to collaborate on substance.

The committee also refers to him as someone who is 'accessible' and who will serve as a standard-bearer for ecology along with NIOO's outstanding researchers.

According to the committee, he is capable of communicating research results beyond the scientific community, among policymakers and the broader public.

De Snoo is expected to continue his research on sustainability and biodiversity, and his efforts to draw attention to these issues.

About NIOO

The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) conducts basic and strategic ecological research. Its researchers and students study animal, plant and microbial ecology in terrestrial and freshwater environments.

The history of the institute's research stretches back more than sixty years and extends across the Netherlands and far beyond. Multidisciplinary collaboration has enabled NIOO to develop the broad, comprehensive research approach needed to solve highly complex ecological problems.

Ecological knowledge is important for the production of food and clean drinking water, for avoiding and solving environmental problems, and for protecting and restoring nature. With more than 300 researchers and students, NIOO is one of the largest Academy research institutes.

About the KNAW

The Academy is the forum, voice, and conscience of science and scholarship in the Netherlands. Its activities are based on the conviction that knowledge and creativity are vital to wellbeing and prosperity.

As an independent organisation, the Academy safeguards the quality and interests of science and scholarship and advises the Dutch government. It is responsible for fourteen institutes whose research and collections place them at the top of the Dutch and international rankings.