Nicole DEWANDRE

Since December 2019, Nicole Dewandre is policy coordinator in the cabinet of President von der Leyen, in charge of foresight. She studied applied physics engineering, economics, operations research and philosophy in Belgium (UC Louvain and ULB) and in the USA (UC Berkeley). She joined the European Commission in 1983 in DG Research in the “Forecasting and Assessment of Science and Technology” (FAST) programme, led by Riccardo Petrella. She then joined Jacques Delors' think tank, where she was in charge of research and industry between 1986 and 1992. Since 1993, she focused on science and society issues. As head of unit in DG RTD, she developed policies on (i) gender equality in research, (ii) partnership between civil society and researchers, and (iii) harnessing EU-funded research to sustainable development. In 2011, she joined DG CONNECT as advisor for societal issues, in charge of fostering a human-centric digital transition. There, she convened the so-called Onlife Initiative, -to which Stefana Broadbent took an active part- in order to explore the deep conceptual shifts arising from the digital transition, and impacting the conditions of policy-making. Since 2016 and before joining the President’s cabinet on December 1, 2019, she has developed a research project in the Joint Research Centre, based on a critical analysis of the language use in EU policy-making, deeply inspired by the work of Hannah Arendt. Among her notable publications, she contributed to The Online Manifesto (2015).

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