The Foundation Chair Prince Bernhard
The Foundation Chair Prince Bernhard (Dutch: Stichting Leerstoel Prins Bernhard), hereinafter referred to as the PBC Foundation, was established on 16 September 1987.
The objective of Foundation is to promote, in the broadest sense, the activities of a special chair on international aspects of nature conservation.
Chairholder
The board members of the Foundation Chair Prince Bernhard are very pleased to have appointed
Prof. Dr. Julia P. Gordon Jones
as visiting professor at Universiteit Utrecht on the Prince Bernhard Chair for International Nature Conservation for the period December 1st 2021-November 30th 2026. The board is looking forward to a fruitful collaboration.
The (due to Covid belated) inauguration took place on December 12th 2022 at 4.15PM in the Utrecht University Academy Building. It was preceded by a seminar during which prof. Dr. Jaboury Ghazoul (ETH Zurich and the former chair holder) Dr. Daniella Schweizer (Restor) and Merijn van Leeuwen (WWF-NL) shared results and narratives on forest and landscape restoration from all over the world.
https://www.uu.nl/en/news/prof-julia-jones-new-prince-bernhard-chair-holder
Goals of Foundation Chair Prince Bernhard
The Foundation Chair Prince Bernhard supports the activities of the Chair. The Chair serves international nature conservation through strengthening the link between conservation science and practice, while opening new avenues for multidisciplinary approaches.
It is doing so by:
(1) stimulating innovative interdisciplinary research and driving science-based international conservation/restoration efforts,
(2) training Dutch and international students (BSc, MSc and PhD) and supervising researchers (including postdocs) in international aspects of nature conservation,
(3) raising awareness of pressing conservation issues and research and establishing policy priorities.
The activities of the chair are carried out in close contact with the University of Utrecht (UU) and external partners, like World Wide Fund for Nature in the Netherlands (WWF-NL).
The most recent report that WWF-NL made possible is 'Forests for the Future'. The report is the culmination of work under the previous Prince Bernhard Chairholder, Professor Jaboury Ghazoul. More information about it can be found under: Forest for the Future (PDF).
Memberships:
• The Prince Bernhard Chair is a member of IUCN (www.IUCN.org),
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
• The Chair is affiliated to the Academy of Ecosystem Services (www.UU.nl/AES)
Prince Bernhard
The Prince Bernhard Chair was founded by the Foundation Chair Prince Bernhard in 1987 at the occasion of the 75th anniversary of His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard and has been associated with Utrecht University ever since. The Chair was initiated in honour of Prince Bernhard’s crucial role in international conservation efforts.
Prince Bernhard (1911-2004) dedicated over 40 years of his life to nature conservation, from the early 1960s until his death, playing a crucial role in this field at an international level. Prince Bernhard was the founder and first president of the WWF (World Wildlife Fund, later World Wide Fund for Nature) and initiated the Peace Park Foundation. The Prince was President of WWF the Netherlands (hereafter WWF-NL) for over 30 years. He closely followed the activities of the Prince Bernhard Chair at Utrecht University.
Initially the activities of the Prince Bernhard Chair were paid for by interest income of a donation that was related to the 75th birthday of the Prince. In addition, new forms of cooperation (funding) have been successfully establised. Currently, WWF-NL is the main donor of the Foundation.