Derk Loorbach is Director of DRIFT and Professor of Socio-economic Transitions at the Faculty of Social Science, both at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Derk is one of the founders of the transition management approach – a governance approach that aims to facilitate and accelerate sustainability by bringing together multiple viewpoints and approaches in a 'transition arena'. Here participants structure their shared problems with the current system and develop shared visions and goals which are then tested for practicality.

He has over one hundred publications in this area and has been involved as an action researcher in numerous transition processes with government, business, civil society and science. He is a frequently invited keynote speaker in and outside Europe.