Dr ir D. Roep holds a MSc in Rural Sociology Wagenigen University (1989) and a PhD Life Sciences on grasroots innovation in agriculture (2000). He is affiliated at the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University since 1989 as a fellow researcher and since 2002 as assistant professor, alternated with self-employment on rural development projects and part-time affiliations at Twente University (2002-2004) and the Wageningen Economic Research (former LEI) of Wageningen University and Research Centre (2007-2009). He participated in various national and EU-funded research projects on agriculture, food and rural development, such as IMPACT (1999-2002), MULTAGRI 2004-2005), SUS-CHAIN (2003-2006), DERREG (2009-2011), SOLINSA (2011-2013) and SUSPLACE (2015-2019). He has expertise in place-based approaches to agricultural and rural development, alternatives modes of food provisioning, grassroots innovations, transformative change, new institutional arrangements supportive to place-based development and, more recently, he developed an interest in community farming and regenerative agriculture.