Members of the MOOC team from the Open University of the Netherlands (from left to right: Marcel Maassen, Ad Ragas, Chris Peeters, Marco Kalz, Ansje Löhr, Charlotte Verburg, Raoul Beunen, Frank van Belleghem)
Heidi Savelli is the Marine Litter Programme Officer in the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based activities (GPA). United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment). GPA is the only global intergovernmental mechanism directly addressing the connectivity between terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems. It also provides the secretariat for the Global Partnership on Marine Litter (GPML).
Aaron Vuola is Associate Programme Officer, Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based activities (GPA) and the Global Partnership on Marine Litter (GPML) within the Marine and Costal Ecosystems Branch of the UN Environment.
Dr. Ansje Löhr has a Master’s degree in Marine Biology (University of Groningen, NL) and a PhD degree in Ecotoxicology (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL). She is an Assistant Professor at the School of Science in the Faculty of Management, Science & Technology of the Open University of the Netherlands. Her teaching and research activities are in the field of (marine) biology, (eco)toxicology, environmental sciences and integrated water management. She has been involvd in several research projects on (micro-) plastics working together with partners in the Clean Meuse project, Deltares, Rijkswaterstaat and the Foundation Waste free Waters in the Netherlands. She also participated in several multidisiciplinary projects in Indonesia, together with the Soegijapranata Catholic University (Semarang, Indonesia), involving stakeholder and participatory approaches. She is the Open University project leader of the UNEP MOOC on Marine Litter.
Prof. Dr. Ad Ragas (1964) studied biology and obtained his PhD at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He currently holds a position as a full professor in Environmental Natural Sciences at the Open University, and as an associate professor in Nijmegen. His main expertise is the modelling of human and ecological risks of chemicals. Within this domain, his focus is on quantifying and assessing uncertainty. He played an active role in several European research projects (e.g., NoMiracle and PHARMAS) and currently participates in i-PiE; a large European research project on the environmental risks of human pharmaceuticals. He coordinates the MSc programme in Environmental Sciences at the Open University and teaches several academic courses on risk assessment, GIS and statistics. He chairs the Dutch scientific advisory committee on quality standards for air and water and is a member of the working group on endangered species of the European Food & Safety Authority.
Prof. Dr. Marco Kalz is full professor and UNESCO hair on open education at the Open University of the Netherlands. He is a fellow of the Internuniversity Centre for Educational Sciences (ICO) and the Dutch research school on Information and Knowledge systems (SIKS). In the last 10 years he worked in different roles (principal investigator, cluster leader, work package leader, researcher) in the context of European projects (FP6, FP7, Interreg). He is currently principal investigator of European and national projects on open education and MOOCs. He is chair of the European EMPOWER working group on open educational resources and MOOCs and the special interest group on technology-enhanced assessment of the European Association for Technology-Enhanced Learning (EA-TEL). His research interest lies on the the use of open education, pervasive technologies and formative assessment to support self-directed lifelong learning.
Dr. Frank Van Belleghem is an environmental toxicologist and an assistant professor at the School of Science in the Faculty of Management, Science & Technology (MST) of the Open University of the Netherlands. His teaching activities are in the field of biology, biochemistry, (environmental) toxicology and environmental sciences. He has been involved in several research projects at Hasselt University (Belgium) on the molecular and cellular aspects of toxicity and on the effects of environmental stress on regeneration and stem cell dynamics of the flatworms Schmidtea mediterranea and Macrostomum lignano. His area of expertise covers toxicity of environmental pollutants, nanoparticles and microplastics, oxidative stress, carcinogenesis, neurotoxicity, regeneration and electron- and fluorescence microscopy.
Dr. Raoul Beunen is assistant professor Environmental Governance at the Open University, the Netherlands and visiting researcher at Wageningen University. He has extensive experience in researching and teaching environmental governance and spatial planning. His research explores the potentials and limitations of environmental policy and planning in the perspective of adaptive governance and sustainability. It focuses on evolution and innovation in governance, paying attention to the various ways in which actors, institutions and discourses co-evolve. Topics covered include policy implementation and integration, spatial planning, stakeholder involvement, and the performance of legal institutions. He has published widely on these issues, drawing on empirical studies in various countries.
Dr. Bernardo Tabuenca is assistant professor at the Faculty of Management, Science and Technology of the Open University of the Netherlands. He has conducted his PhD research at the Welten Institute (Research Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology) on the topic “Ubiquitous Technology for Lifelong Learners”. Previously, he had received his MSc in Informatics and Online Education and his Computer Science degree. His current areas of research include technology-enhanced learning, ubiquitous technologies, open education, and lifelong learning. Bernardo is a member of Global OER Graduate Network and the International Association for Mobile Learning. Furthermore, he has been involved in European projects like EMuRgency, STELLAR, LACE or Open Discovery Space.
Charlotte Verburg is an M.Sc. student in Environmental Sciences at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Her specializations are in ‘environmental systems analysis’ and ‘natural resources and economics’. For her internship she went to Indonesia to investigate the problem of plastic pollution at the coastal waters of Java. And she explored the opportunities for future research projects, including the possibilities to use the Global NEWS model to analyse plastic litter pollution. For her M.Sc. thesis she analyses the accumulation of plastic litter in the European marine environment.
Prof. Dr. Carolien Kroeze is professor at the Environmental Systems Analysis Group of Wageningen University (The Netherlands), and professor Environmental Outlook Studies at the Open University of The Netherlands. She has been involved in integrated assessment studies, with special emphasis on nutrient cycling in terrestrial and aquatic systems, and emissions of air pollutants. Her research includes scenario analyses and evaluation of environmental policies aiming at simultaneous abatement of multiple environmental pollution problems. Her field of study includes environmental systems analysis, with special focus on substance flow analysis and biogeochemistry, using multidisciplinary approaches and integrated assessment modeling. She co-developed global models, focused on understanding the relationship between human activity and coastal pollution.
Authors leadership track
- Block 1: Ad Ragas (OU), Heidi Savelli (UNEP) and Ansje Löhr (OU)
- Block 2: Raoul Beunen (OU), Ansje Löhr (OU), Ad Ragas (OU) and Heidi Savelli (UNEP)
We are most grateful to the following people and organisations for their contribution to:
- Video Honolulu Strategy:
Nancy Wallace - Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program
-Video Clean Meuse project, The Netherlands:
Sylvia Spierts-Brouwer – Institute for Environmental education and sustainability (IVN) (project coordinator Clean Meuse project)
Carlijn van Tijen – The Province of Limburg
Gijsbert Tweehuysen – Waste free Waters
Stuf Kaasenbrood - Volunteer Clean Meuse project (former PlasticsEurope representative in the Netherlands)
Authors expert track
- Block 3: Carolien Kroeze (OU), Ansje Löhr (OU), Charlotte Verburg (OU) and Heidi Savelli (UNEP)
We are most grateful to the following people and organizations for their contribution:
Dr. Denise Hardesty - the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Dr. Jenna Jemback - Associate professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia
- Block 4: Ansje Löhr (OU), Heidi Savelli (UNEP), Patrick ten Brink (the Institute for European Environmental Policy - IEEP)
We are most grateful to the following people and organizations for their contribution:
Dr. Denise Hardesty - the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Dr. Erik van Sebille - the Grantham Institute Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Joanna Randall and Katherine George - Wildlife Campaign Manager, World Animal Protection, United Kingdom
- Block 5: Frank Van Belleghem (OU), Ansje Löhr (OU), Ad Ragas (OU)
We are most grateful to the following people and organizations for their contribution:
Dr. Peter John Kershaw - chairman Working Group 40 of the joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection,
Dr. François Galgani - the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (France, Corsica),
Dr. Chelsea Rochman - the University of California, Davis (US),
Prof. Dr. Dick Vethaak - Deltares and the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) of VU University Amsterdam (the Netherlands).
Supporting team Open University the Netherlands
- Audio Visual Team: Marcel Maassen and Perry Pintar
- Art director: Chris Peeters
- Visual Designers: Janine Cranshof and Evelien Karsten
- Editing: Roel Hoekstra
- Project controller: Annemarie Cremers