Second opening keynote speaker confirmed!

What a great start to the week! We're thrilled to confirm Professor Heleen de Coninck, leading researcher in international climate, energy policy and innovation, as one of our opening keynote speakers.

Heleen is Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation and Climate Change at Eindhoven University of Technology and Associate Professor in Innovation Studies and Sustainability at the Department of Environmental Science at Radboud University Nijmegen's Faculty of Science. 

Her main research focus is on the role of innovation and technology in the international climate negotiations, on policy for making energy-intensive industry climate-neutral, and on the viability and societal dynamics of new technologies for 1.5C-mitigation pathways.

Heleen was a Coordinating Lead Author on the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C, and is currently a Coordinating Lead Author on the Sixth Assessment Report. She was part of the IPCC Working Group III Technical Support Unit during the Fourth Assessment Report cycle, where she coordinated the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage. She was also a Lead Author in the climate mitigation part of the Fifth Assessment Report (2014). 

Heleen graduated in Chemistry and in Environmental Science from Radboud University in Nijmegen, specialising in climate change and atmospheric chemistry; she joined the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany and then the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, the largest energy research institute in the country, where she worked on international climate policy, rural electrification, the Clean Development Mechanism, Carbon Capture and Storage, capacity building in developing countries, and policy studies.

In 2009 Heleen completed a PhD on technology in the international climate regime at the VU University Amsterdam, in collaboration with Princeton University in the United States.

A working title for Heleen's keynote will be confirmed shortly,