Biography
Josephine van Zeben is Provost for Education and Academic Staff Development and full-time professor and Chair of Transnational Law at the Florence School of Transnational Governance
As Provost for Education and Academic Staff Development, Professor van Zeben leads the EUI’s educational initiatives, encompassing doctoral supervision, masters education, executive education, and postdoctoral programmes, together with the Dean of Graduate Studies and Academic Director of the Max Weber Programme and other Fellowships. She is also responsible for academic staff development, promoting an inclusive, diverse working culture that upholds academic excellence and reflects the EUI’s values.
Professor van Zeben’s research focuses on the regulation of environmental issues by public and private actors across jurisdictions, with particular attention to polycentric governance theory and developments related to the European Union. Her research draws on her teaching of law to non-law students and lawyers from foreign jurisdictions in actively searching for optimal ways of analysing complex legal and societal problems to facilitate interdisciplinary solutions.
Professor van Zeben is also co-editor-in-chief of Transnational Environmental Law, series editor of the Transnational Environmental Law book series (both Cambridge University Press) and part of the Transdisciplinary Advisory Board of JPI Climate. She has been an affiliate faculty member of the Ostrom Workshop since 2014.
Before joining the EUI, she was a Professor and Chair of the LAW group at Wageningen University (WUR, the Netherlands) and a Law Fellow at Worcester College, University of Oxford. She has held visiting professorships at Notre Dame Law School (United States), Bocconi University (Italy), La Trobe Law School (Australia) and has given guest lectures in various international institutions. Between 2012 and 2022, she taught Environmental Law and Policy at ETH Zürich.
Professor van Zeben holds a PhD in Law and Economics (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam, and LLM degrees from Harvard University and the University of Amsterdam (European Private Law), an LLB in Scots Law from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Social Sciences from University College Utrecht, Utrecht University.