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Prof. Van de Walle will take over from current Director Prof. Bart Verspagen, who will complete his second term on 31 August 2020. Under his directorship over the last eight years, UNU-MERIT has reinforced its role as one of the world’s leading research institutes on the economics of innovation, while expanding its research portfolio on migration, social protection, institutions and governance – topics incubated at UNU-MERIT’s School of Governance.

Maastricht University wishes to thank warmly Prof. Bart Verspagen, who has led UNU-MERIT with great success for the past eight years. UM Rector Professor Rianne Letschert commented: “We also welcome Professor Van de Walle to our community and look forward to his leadership in further developing UNU-MERIT.”

Internationally recognised for his research on information systems and decision-making, Prof. Van de Walle is a thought leader in his field. He is a Professor of Policy Analysis and Head of the Department of Multi-Actor Systems in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands. He has also held faculty positions at Tilburg University, the Netherlands and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA and was a researcher at the Nuclear Research Centre SCK·CEN, Belgium. He was previously a senior fellow with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, USA and has worked extensively with humanitarian organisations, most notably the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Prof. Van de Walle holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Ghent, Belgium (1996). He has authored around 150 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and proceedings of international conferences on issues related to information systems, decision-making and policy analysis, often in the context of humanitarian response.