The High Committee for a Just Transition represented the scientific axis of the General Estates. It was made up of 24 experts specialising in social issues, economics, democratic innovation and environment issues.
The High Committee's overall mission was to share its expertise and advise the government and stakeholders in preparation for the Conference for a Just Transition. It was also tasked with publishing and distributing a special report that answered the question, "How to organise and introduce a just transition in Belgium?" It met 11 times, almost once a month for a year and a half.
On 24 October 2023, the High Committee submitted its report "Just Transition in Belgium: Concepts, Issues at Stake, and Policy Levers" to Minister Khattabi, along with a policy memorandum. These documents can be viewed here.
The biographies below were written in 2022.
De co-presidents
is a professor of social policy and a member of the Centre for Social Policy Herman Deleeck at the University of Antwerp. She has acted as an adviser to the OECD, the European Commission and the Belgian government, among others. She is currently a member of the Belgian High Council for Employment.
is professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles, visiting professor at EDHEC Lille and at the University of Namur. Together with Tom Bauler, he is the founder of the Institut interfacultaire des transformations socio-écologiques (ULB). His research includes sustainable finance/money, social innovation, resilience and ethics of economics. The research he conducts covers sustainable finance/money, social innovation, resilience and ethics within the economy.
De members
is a Professor of Development Economics at UCLouvain. He was Director of the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires, Démocratie, Institutions, Subjectivité (CriDis) from 2018 to 2020, the IACCHOS Institute, and is a member of the Center for Development Studies (DVLP) at the same institute.
is a Professor of Environmental Law at ULB. She holds the Interfaculty Chair in Environmental Law, shared by the Faculty of Law and Criminology, the Faculty of Science and the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. Chiara is interested in the legal aspects of environmental protection at various levels, in particular at European level, and in the governance of energy technologies.
is Director of Research on Climate and the Circular Economy at HIVA (Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid at KU Leuven). He heads a research team focusing on environmental policies. His PhD was dedicated to the use of environmental taxes as a political instrument.
is a Professor at ULB attached to SONYA (Socio-Environmental Dynamics Research Group) and holds the "Environment and Economics" Chair. His research focuses on alternative indicators to GDP, social innovation, and socio-technical "exnovation", as well as citizen solutions, and transition processes.
is a Professor of Social Law at ULB and a Researcher at the Centre for Public and Social Law. Her research focuses on the situation of people working outside or on the margins of social law protection, on transformations in the welfare state, and on fundamental social rights. She is also interested in uncovering the relationship between social law and productivism.
is a lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics (and affiliated member of the Centre for Sustainable Development (Ghent University). He trained as a bioengineer in land and forest management at the KULeuven and holds a Master's Degree and PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology.
is a Professor at UCLouvain and Sciences Po, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. A specialist in economic and social rights, he was Special Rapporteur on the right to food between 2008 and 2014.
holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (2004) and a master's degree in political science from MM.I. T. (2004).
She is principal investigator of the Fonds national de la recherche scientifique (FNRS), professor at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL) and senior research associate of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University.
Tim is Senior Research Fellow at the Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy (University of Antwerp), where he conducts research on poverty and social security, inequality, and climate change.
is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She is passionate about the transition to a more sustainable world. She coordinates the Mobilise research group, where dedicated researchers study and support the transition to sustainable mobility and logistics.
she is a Researcher at the VUB and the Universitat de Barcelona School of Economics, where her research focuses on Malthusian thought and political economy, as well as the ecology of migration. Her research is on the intersection between demography, social geography, political economy, and ecology.
PhD, LL.M (Kings College London), is a qualified researcher at the FNRS, professor at Université Saint-Louis Brussels and director of the CEDRE (Centre d'étude du droit de l'environnement). As a lawyer, she focuses her research on the new challenges of environmental protection, in a context of multiple crises, at the interface of different legal orders.
is a researcher at the Electrical Energy Laboratory (EELAB) at Ghent University. He studies the technical and economic impact of the energy transition on the power system, both in a national and European context. On behalf of the federal government, he analysed the impact of phasing out nuclear power on electricity prices.
is Full Professor in Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp. He is a member of the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change and Scientific Director of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Diversity, Urbanity and Citizenship.
is a Postdoctoral Researcher (FWO Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) at the KU Leuven Centre for Sociological Research. As part of her research, she analyses social policies and their effects on social inequalities, social inclusion, and job quality.
holds a Master's Degree in Political Science and Economics, and a PhD in Economics (UClouvain). She is Associate Professor at the ICHEC Brussels Management School and Professor at UCLouvain. Her teaching experience includes sustainability economics, ecological economics, and the epistemology of economics.
is a Health Sociologist at Ghent University, where she coordinates CliMigHealth, an international network of experts working on climate change, migration and healthcare research, education, and public awareness.
is a Professor of Social Law at UCLouvain (IACCHOS-JURI). After completing her thesis at the European University Institute in Florence, she worked at the University of Geneva, International Labour Organization, and the European Commission. She set up and directed the Federal Institute for the Equality of Women and Men (2004-2006), and was in charge of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Nantes in 2021-2022.
Author and Expert in Democratic Innovation. He is a Senior Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Bard College, New York, president of FIDE (Federation for Innovation in Democracy in Europe) and a member of the KNOCA advisory board (Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies of the European Climate Foundation).
is a Full Professor of Climatology and Sustainable Development Sciences at the Université Catholique de Louvain and a member of the Académie Royale de Belgique and the Federal Council for Sustainable Development. He has been actively involved in the work of the IPCC since 1995, and was its Vice-Chairman from 2008 to 2015.
is a Senior Economist at OFCE/Sciences Po. He teaches at Sciences Po (PSIA and EMI), Ponts Paris tech, ESSEC, and Stanford University. He specialises in welfare economics and the social-ecological approach.
Academic support
is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her research focuses on prospective research and sustainable transitions (governance and just transition). She is also the head of COGITO, a prospective research project aimed at building and analysing scenarios for a just transition to carbon neutrality and climate resilience in Brussels.
has a background in Economic Sciences (UGent) and Sustainable Urban Planning (Aalborg University) and carried out her PhD research at the Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy (UAntwerpen) on the role of social inequalities in the climate transition.