Annelli Janssen Senior researcher & advisor

Annelli Janssen (she/they) is a senior researcher and advisor at DRIFT and focuses on the social side of various transitions. She advises stakeholders on what their role can be in accelerating these transitions. Academically, Annelli is interested in how collective identity can influence the course of a transition, and how we can organise knowledge-making in a transition in an equitable way. In her postdoc at DRIFT, she investigated the influence of farmer identities and landscape identity on agricultural transitions in ‘t Groene Hart.

Annelli is work package leader of several national and international research projects, including Water4Change and Our Smart Family Buddy. These projects range from transitions in water management in India to health inequalities in Rotterdam South, but all aim to seek transformative approaches for a more just world in co-creation with different groups. Annelli teaches in various courses and supervises several PhD scholars.

Annelli is fascinated by the interplay of different perspectives and disciplines in a complex system. These could be different perspectives on how to deal with subsidence, or, for example, the combination of philosophy and neuroscience. Annelli obtained a BA and BSc from University College Utrecht, with specialisations in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience. She then did a research master's in philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Annelli then obtained her PhD in philosophy of neuroscience from Macquarie University in Sydney and Radboud University in Nijmegen.


Before her PhD, Annelli worked at the Rathenau Institute as a junior researcher, and published a report about automatic face and emotion recognition. For a while she was a producer at NJO: a festival for classical music. This broad range of interests translates to her private life: she likes salsa dancing, lindy hop, playing the harp, and rock climbing.