Bettina Bock

Bio

Bettina Bock is Professor for Population Decline and Quality of Life at Groningen University and Professor for Inclusive Rural Development at the Rural Sociology Chairgroup at Wageningen University. Her areas of research include inclusive rural development and social innovation, with a particular focus on remote and depopulating rural areas, governance and rural gender relations. She is supervising a number of international in this area and has been as guest professor at the Università di Gastronomia in Pollenza in 2020), Cornell University in the United States (2019), Kyoto University (2018) and Newcastle University (2017). She is also collaborating with policymakers on a regular basis and has been invited to national and regional expert committee on questions regarding spatial development and planning, maintenance of rural schools and regional development.

Currently she is participating in two EU projects: Unlocking Rural-Urban Synergies (http://rural-urban.eu) and Integrative Mechanisms for Addressing Spatial Justice and Territorial Inequalities in Europe (http://imajine-project.eu/) From 2013-2019 she was the editor-in-chief of Sociologia Ruralis, one of the leading academic journals in the field of rural development. In addition, she is a board member of the European Society for Rural Sociology and the International Rural Sociology Association.