The appointment was made in consultation with the faculty's Works Council and Student Council.

‘I am delighted that Sven Dupré will be joining our wonderful Faculty of Humanities,’ says Peter-Paul Verbeek, rector magnificus and acting-president of the UvA Executive Board. ‘As a respected academic and skilled administrator, Sven has everything it takes to further shape the faculty's education, research and societal impact. He has a clear vision, is aware of current developments, and actively seeks connections, both nationally and internationally. Moreover, he is a humanities scholar through and through, who already knows the UvA well. He is decisive, collaborative and attentive to the people around him. All of this makes him ideally suited to lead the faculty in the coming years.’

Sven Dupré: ‘Over the past ten years, I've had the opportunity to get to know this wonderful faculty, with its highly regarded teaching and research, and the people responsible for them. I consider it a privilege to dedicate myself to the faculty as dean in the coming years. These are challenging and uncertain times and I'm eager to work with the faculty community to help strengthen the university's position in society – and the humanities in particular – by seeking collaboration both in Amsterdam and nationally.’

About Sven Dupré

Dupré has an interdisciplinary background. He conducts research and teaches at the intersection of (technical) art history and the history of knowledge and science. Since 2015, he has been professor of the History of Art, Science and Technology at Utrecht University (UU). Since 2024, he has also been vice-dean and portfolio holder for Research and Impact at the Faculty of Humanities at UU. In this capacity, he has been responsible for quality assurance and the implementation of the Recognition & Rewards programme. Previously, he was director of the Research Institute for History and Art History at UU, board member of the Department of History and Art History, and head of the Department of Art History.

As part of a research project he conducted at UU and the UvA with an ERC Consolidator Grant, Dupré was also a professor at the UvA until last summer (on a part-time basis, in combination with his position at UU). In this capacity, he collaborated with artists and researchers on an EU Creative Europe project, and with the Faculty of Science on an NWO Smart Culture Big Data/Digital Humanities project. From 2011 to 2015, Dupré was professor of the History of Knowledge (Wissensgeschichte) at the Freie Universität Berlin and director of the research group Art and Knowledge in Premodern Europe at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Dupré holds various advisory positions. He is a member of the Council for the Humanities at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as the research committee of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS-KNAW). He has also worked extensively abroad as a visiting researcher and fellow. He was a Robert H. Smith Scholar in Residence for Renaissance Sculpture in Context at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art in London, and a visiting fellow at institutions including the University of Cambridge, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the University of Sydney.