Katarzyna (Kate) Negacz is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), specialising in food systems and biodiversity governance. As an interdisciplinary environmental governance scholar, she brings together science and policy, focusing on how institutions and governance systems can better respond to complex environmental challenges across scales and regions. Her research focuses on the role of non-state and sub-national actors in global biodiversity governance, as well as the potential of saline and degraded lands for sustainable food production.
Dr. Negacz has led and contributed to research projects across Europe, Asia, South America and Africa, including fieldwork and stakeholder engagement in Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Argentina and Mozambique. She actively collaborates with international partners to co-produce knowledge and support evidence-based decision-making on a variety of earth system governance issues, in particular biodiversity, salinity and sustainable consumption.
Katarzyna is currently working on the following projects:
- SUSTAIN COST Action - Sustainable use of salt-affected lands
- Biodiversa+ SaltyBEATS - Salty Symphonies: Bringing back Biodiversity in Marginal Saltlands
- HE RETOUCH Nexus - Resilient Water Governance Under Climate Change within the WEFE NEXUS
- Bio* with the PBL (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) - Global Biodiversity Governance beyond 2020.
Katarzyna is a coordinator for the MSc program Environment and Resource Management at the VU.
Dr. Negacz serves a Vice-chair for the FAO GSP International Network of Salt-Affected Soils.
Expertise
Environmental governance and policy integration, saline agriculture, biodiversity governance, ecosystem services, stakeholder empowerment, transnational sustainability initiatives.
