Jeroen Wolbers
Associate professor
- Name
- Dr. J.J. Wolbers
- Telephone
- +31 70 800 9500
- j.j.wolbers@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0003-3296-4130
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).
More information about Jeroen Wolbers
News
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Crisis Management alumni: Insights and career tips -
Trumpet, drum and teamwork: ISGA colleagues perform at the Canal Concert -
Learning from success: €1 million for research into cybersecurity -
Insights from CSM alumni: real-world experience and career guidance -
Leiden University introduces the first bachelor's programme in Cybersecurity & Cybercrime -
Alumni panel Crisis and Security Management: ‘Pursue a career you are truly passionate about’ -
Refugee crisis one of many challenges for security region: 'We desperately need good people' -
Registration still open: lecture series on crisis governance starts Friday -
Agreement between ISGA and NIPV made official -
Lecture series: The Dutch crisis management system -
Partnership of ISGA in the LIFE SECURDOMINO project -
Leiden Leadership Lunch: State of the Art Crisis Management: Implications for Leadership -
26 Research and Education Grants in 2020 for the Institute of Security and Global Affairs -
Nature, Society, and Scale -
Veni subsidies for sixteen Leiden researchers
Research Output
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Five years after Covid‐19: What have we learned (and forgotten)? -
Assist or accuse? Identifying trends in crisis communication through a bibliometric literature review -
A renewed awareness: Reinvigorating preparedness research for crisis and disastermanagement -
A bibliometric review of COVID-19 research in the crisis and disaster literature -
Organizational and Institutional Crisis Management
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:
- Governance of Crisis
- Cyber Security Governance
- Terrorism and Political Violence
- Violence, Interventions, and Policing
- Intelligence and National Security
- 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.
Associate professor
- Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs
- Institute of Security and Global Affairs
- Wolbers J. & Kuipers S. (2025), Five Years After Covid-19 : What Have We Learned (and Forgotten)?, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy 16(2): .
- Wolbers Jeroen Van Steen Tommy Del-Real Cristina Van den Berg Bibi (2025), Cyber Crisis Averted: Using Safety Science Principles to Learn From Success. In: , Proceedings of the 22nd ISCRAM Conference. Proceedings of the International ISCRAM Conference: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management.
- Wolbers J.J. (2024), Unified command? Preliminary findings from a situation awareness experiment. Proceedings of the 21st ISCRAM Conference 25 April 2025 - 29 May 2024.
- Luesink M., Wolbers J.J., Duin M. van & Kuipers S. (2024), Scenario planning to enable foresight in crisis management. Berthold Penkert, Bernd Hellingrath, Adam Widera, Hauke Speth, Michael Middelhoff, Kees Boersma & Matthias Kalthöner (Eds.). Proceedings of the 21st ISCRAM Conference 25 April 2025 - 29 May 2024.
- Luesink M.B.A., Wolbers J.J., Duin M. van & Kuipers S.L. (2024), Scenario planning to enable foresight in crisis management . Proceedings of the 21st ISCRAM Conference 25 April 2025 - 29 May 2024.
- Boin R.A., Kuipers S.L. & Wolbers J.J. (2024), The politics of crisis management in the Netherlands. In: De Lange S., Louwerse T., ‘t Hart P. & Van Ham C. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Dutch politics. Oxford Handbooks in Politics & International Relations: Oxford University Press.
- Boin R.A., Kuipers S.L. & Wolbers J.J. (2024), The politics of crisis management in the Netherlands. In: De Lange S., Louwerse T. 't Hart P. & Van Ham C. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Dutch politics: Oxford University Press. 590-606.
- Kuipers S, Perlstein S., Wolbers J. & Jong W. (2023), Assist or accuse?: Identifying trends in crisis communication through a bibliometric literature review, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy 14(4): 272-296.
- Wolbers J & Kuipers S. (2023), A renewed awareness: reinvigorating preparedness research for crisis and disaster management, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy 14(3): 184-187.
- Varst L. van der, Broeders S., Boersma F.K. & Wolbers J.J. (2023), Het Rode Kruis in toekomstige crises. Arnhem: Nederlands Instituut Publieke Veiligheid .
- Wolbers J.J., Treurniet W. & Boersma F.K. (2023), A decade of Netcentric crisis management: challenges and future development. In: Scholl H.J., Holdeman E.E. & Boersma F.K. (Eds.), Disaster management and information technology: professional response and recovery management in the age of disasters. Public Administration and Information Technology no. 40. Cham: Springer Link. 65-81.
- Kuipers S.L., Wilt A.M. van der & Wolbers J.J. (2022), Pandemic Publishing: a bibliometric review of COVID‐19 research in the crisis and disaster literature, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy : .
- Kuipers S & Wolbers J (2021), Organizational and institutional crisis management. In: , Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics .
- Wolbers J.J. (2021), Understanding distributed sensemaking in crisis management: the case of the Utrecht terrorist attack, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management : 1-11.
- Boersma F.K. & Wolbers J.J. (2021), Foundations of responsive crisis management: institutional design and information, Politics : 1-25.
- Boersma F.K., Ferguson J., Groenewegen P. & Wolbers J.J. (2021), The dynamics of power in disaster response networks, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy : 1-16.
- Wolbers J. (2021), Understanding distributed sensemaking in crisis management: The case of the Utrecht terrorist attack, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management : 1-11.
- Wolbers J.J., Kuipers S.L. & Boin R.A. (2021), A systematic review of 20 years of crisis and disaster research: trends and progress, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy : 1-19.
- Wolbers J.J., Kuipers S.L. & Boin R.A. (2021), A systematic review of 20 years of crisis and disaster research: trends and progress, Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy 12(4): 1-19.
- Treurniet W. & Wolbers J. (2020), Codifying a crisis: progressing from information sharing to distributed decision‐making, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 29(1): 23-35.
- Wolbers J.J. (2020), Crisismanagement na de tramaanslag in Utrecht, Cahiers Politiestudies 57(4): 127-160.
- Pauw E. de, Defré D. & Wolbers J. (Eds.) (2020), Politie in Crisissituaties. Cahiers Politiestudies. Oud-Turnhout: Gompel&Svacina.
- Wolbers J. (2020), In sturing blijven in dynamische operaties: Het deficit van ‘command & control’?, Cahiers Politiestudies 57(4): 161-168.
- Wolbers J. (2019), To the edge and beyond: How fast-response organizations adapt in rapidly changing crisis situations [When duty calls: confronting fragmentation in crisis management] (translation: Schakel J.K. & Wolbers J.), Human Relations : 1-32.
- Boersma K., Ferguson J., Groenewegen P., Mulder F., Schmidt A.J. & Wolbers J. (2019), Platform Governance of Self-Organized Initiatives in Response to Disasters. In: Koppejan J., Karre P.M. & Terrier K. (Eds.), Smart Hybridity. Potentials and Challenges of New Governance Arrangements. The Hague: Eleven International Publishers. 31-42.
- Wolbers J.J. & Boersma F.K. (2019), Key Challenges in Crisis Management. In: Gephart R., Miller C. & Helgesson K. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management: Routledge.
- Boersma F.K., Diks D., Ferguson J. & Wolbers J. (2019), From reactive to proactive use of social media in emergency response: A critical discussion of the Twitcident Project. In: Silvius G. (Ed.), Emergency and Disaster Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. 236-252.
- Wolbers J.J., Boersma F.K. & Groenewegen P. (2018), Introducing a fragmentation perspective on coordination in crisis management, Organization Studies 39(11): 1521-1546.
- Schmidt A., Wolbers J., Ferguson J. & Boersma K. (2018), Are you Ready2Help? Conceptualizing the management of online and onsite volunteer convergence, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 26(3): 338-349.
- Boersma F.K., Ferguson J., Groenewegen P., Mulder F., Schmidt A. & Wolbers J. (2018), Platformsturing van zelforganisatie tijdens rampen, Bestuurskunde 27(2): 14-21.
- Boersma F.K., Comfort L.K., Groenendaal J. & Wolbers J.J. (2014), Incident command systems: A dynamic tension among goals, rules and practice, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 22(1): 1-4.
- Wolbers J.J. & Boersma F.K. (2013), The common operational picture as collective sensemaking, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 21(4): 186-199.
- Reservist muzikant