Jeroen Wolbers is an Associate Professor specialising in public safety at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) at Leiden University. His expertise lies in organising under pressure, focusing on processes such as coordination, sensemaking, and decision-making. His work has been published in leading journals in the fields of organizational science, safety, and crisis management. Currently, Jeroen serves as Director of Education and is responsible for all educational programs and affiliated teaching staff at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs (ISGA). These programmes train students in the field of safety and security in the bachelor's program Security Studies (BaSS), the interfaculty bachelor's programme Cybersecurity & Cybercrime (BaCC), the master's programme Crisis and Security Management (CSM), and the master's programme International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD).

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Jeroen Wolbers is an Associate Professor specialising in public safety at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) at Leiden University. His expertise lies in organising under pressure, focusing on processes such as coordination, sensemaking, and decision-making. His work has been published in leading journals in the fields of organisational science, safety, and crisis management.

In his doctoral research, Jeroen investigated coordination processes between the police, fire department, and ambulance services during various emergencies and disasters. His dissertation was awarded the Grigor McClelland Award in 2017, recognising it as one of the top three dissertations in organizational science worldwide that year. He also received the dissertation award from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU).

Previously, Jeroen was a postdoc on the NWO project Smart Disaster Governance at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. As part of this project, he conducted fieldwork in the aftermath of the earthquakes in Nepal in 2015, the refugee crisis in Europe, and several disaster exercises in the Netherlands. Additionally, Jeroen is an NWO Veni laureate (2018–2022). With this grant, he studied the effectiveness of command tactics within the police and fire department, particularly during counter-terrorism operations. He also conducted a series of innovative experiments using virtual reality. The results contributed to improving and developing the curriculum at the Dutch Fire Academy and the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety (NIPV). This led to a multi-year collaboration agreement between NIPV and ISGA, involving several PhD candidates conducting research in the field of public safety.

Currently, Jeroen serves as Director of Education and is responsible for all educational programmes and affiliated teaching staff at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs (ISGA). These programmes train students in the field of safety and security within:

• the bachelor's programme Security Studies (BaSS),
• the interfaculty bachelor's programme Cybersecurity & Cybercrime (BaCC),
• the master's programme Crisis and Security Management (CSM),
• the master's programme International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD)

In the popular CSM master’s programme, students can currently choose from six specialisations:

1. Governance of Crisis
2. Cyber Security Governance
3. Terrorism and Political Violence
4. Violence, Interventions, and Policing
5. Intelligence and National Security
6. War and Peace Studies

In addition, ISGA offers a rich and diverse range of minors for third-year bachelor’s students (including within the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus framework), such as:

• Public Risk and Disaster
• Cyber Security
• Intelligence Studies
• Global Affairs
• Violence Studies

With these contemporary and innovative educational programmes, ISGA plays a leading role in training future safety and security professionals in the Netherlands and Europe.

Publications