Conference Co-Chairs

Prof. Dr. Maurice Hoffmann has led the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) since 2015. He is affiliated with Ghent University where he teaches nature management, and ecosystem management and services. He has broad scientific interests and has studied a.o. cryptogamic epiphytes and air pollution, estuarine ecology, herbivore ecology, and ecosystem functions of mammal herbivores, such as landscape and habitat modelling, diet selection, zoochorous seed dispersal and ecology of dung-associated beetles.He is president of the Alternet Association, a European consortium of scientific institutes working as a science-policy-society interface on biodiversity, ecosystems, ecosystem services and social involvement.

Prof. Dr. Antoon Opperhuizen is Director of the Office of Risk Assessment and Research of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), and Professor of Risk Assessment and Risk Communication at the Maastricht University in the Netherlands.The NVWA mission includes Food and Product Safety, Animal Welfare, Animal Health, Plant Health and Nature. The fundamental approach of the NVWA is to understand risk as being composed of effect and the chance (probability) that this effect will be manifested. This chance – effect paradigm of risk is widely applied for risk analysis and risk management. To characterize the chance – effect paradigm, risk profiles will be used. These profiles also indicate actors who can influence the risk, so that they can be used as helpful tools for risk communication. This may lead to various risk communication strategies for different risk issues, and also to different strategies focusing on various stakeholders.