Hub Zwart

Hub Zwart is dean of Erasmus School of Philosophy.

Hub Zwart studied philosophy (cum laude) and psychology (cum laude) at Radboud University Nijmegen, worked as research associate at the Centre for Bioethics in Maastricht (1988-1992) and defended his thesis in 1993 (cum laude). He was appointed as research director of the Centre for Ethics (Radboud University Nijmegen, 1992-2000) and in 2000 became full Professor / Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Science.

In 2018, he became Dean of ESPhil. He published 15 books (3 in English), >100 academic papers (single or first author). He presented >150 international lectures, most of them invited, was visiting scholar at the Hastings Centre (NY) and visiting professor at St. John’s (Canada), Nagasaki (Japan), Seoul (Korea) and Ghent (Belgium). 23 Ph.D. research projects supervised by him have resulted in a thesis. In 2004 he became director of the Centre for Society and Genomics (CSG) funded by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI) and established at his department. He is editor-in-chief of the Library for Ethics and Applied Philosophy (SPRINGR, LOET) and of the journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy (Springer). The focus of his research is on philosophical and ethical issues in the emerging life sciences with a focus on genomics and post-genomics fields such synthetic biology, nanomedicine and brain research, but he is also interested in research integrity and academic authorship. Special attention is given to the use of genres of the imagination (novels, plays, poetry) in research and education.

More information


zwart@esphil.eur.nl