Michiel VAN OUDHEUSDEN

Michiel van Oudheusden is Assistant Professor of Citizen Science for Responsible Transformation at the Athena Institute (VU Amsterdam), working at the intersections of science, public engagement, and innovation governance. From 2008 to 2012, he reflected with Flemish nanoscientists and technologists on how nanotechnologies shape new, collective futures. This exploration resulted in his PhD thesis on the politics of participation in technology assessment. While based at the University of Liège (2012-2015), he compared Flemish and Walloon innovation policies. In 2015, he joined the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK-CEN, where he studied safety and security governance, citizen-driven radiation monitoring, and reached out to policymakers, scientists, members of civil society, and the public at large, with a view towards inciting responsible research and innovation in the nuclear field. From 2019 to 2021 he was employed as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at the University of Cambridge, where he researched and facilitated interactions between grassroots citizen science groups and formal institutions, such as public authorities and research communities. Together with illustrator Hans Boeykens, he creates science cartoons. He is a cofounder and coordinator of the FWO-funded Belgian Science, Technology and Society network (B.STS).