Tellus Institute - For a Great Transition

Photo of Philip J. VergragtPhilip J. Vergragt, Ph.D

Senior Associate
Pvergragt@tellus.org

Prof. Vergragt is a Senior Associate at Tellus Institute since 2003, and a Visiting Scholar at MIT since 2005; he was a Professor of Technology Assessment from 1991-2003 at Delft University of Technology, and a Visiting Professorial Fellow at Manchester University, UK. His research areas are social influences on technological innovations for sustainability and sustainable consumption; they include studies in sustainable energy and transportation, including hydrogen fuel cells, also including questions of infrastructure, consumer acceptance, and social learning. From 1993-97, he served as Deputy Director of the Dutch Government’s Sustainable Technological Development program where he developed and applied methods of future visioning and backcasting. This approach was further elaborated in a methodology for an EU-sponsored project, Strategies Towards a Sustainable Household, also for use by NGOs, government agencies, and businesses. More recently, he has advanced the concept of the "Bounded Socio-Technical Experiment", in which the uptake of new technologies can lead to wider awareness of sustainability issues through stakeholder driven processes of higher order learning. Prof. Vergragt was a co-founder and is an Advisory Board member of the Greening of Industry Network, and was a Senior Lecturer and the founder of the “Chemistry Shop” at Groningen University, the Netherlands. He has published more than 70 academic papers, co-authored 2 books, and lectured widely.

Prof. Vergragt received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Leiden University in 1976.