Guided by a deep awareness from early childhood towards sustainability issues and a thorough analytical and critical approach (as befits a true historian), I have been looking at the integration of sustainable development in higher education. My work mainly focused on the integration of individual sustainability competences, the organisational and systems change needed to facilitate the integration of sustainability.

Since 2007, I am involved in several research projects focusing on competences for sustainable development; curriculum design; indicators and assessment instruments for sustainability; implementation models; integration strategies; the ecological footprint in higher education; motivation and involvement of staff and students; systems thinking; and stakeholder management. Results of these projects and initiatives are published in research papers, conference papers, articles and book chapters. For further information you can have a look at the “projects” and “publications” sections.

I obtained my master’s degree in modern history (KU Leuven, 2004), pedagogical degree (KU Leuven, 2005) and master’s degree in sustainable development and human ecology (VUB, 2006), topped by a degree in environmental care (VUB, 2006), and health and safety (KU Leuven, 2009). I made my historical dissertation on the History of Belgian Zoos in the 19th and 20th century (2004), which is still a topic I’m highly interested in. My sustainability dissertation focused on the economic valuation of nature reserves (2006), of which results were presented at some conferences and workshops.

After an internship with the international firm Rambøll Management Brussels, consulting for the public sector, I started working as a researcher at Leuven University College (KHLeuven) and later on the University of Leuven, Campus Brussels (KU Leuven). I have been granted a Special PhD Fellowship of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) for my research on “Higher Education for Sustainable Development. Interlinking Sustainability Competences and Research Competences in an Organisational Change Context”. This PhD has been succesfully defended at the University of Antwerp, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy in 2016.

Currently, I am working as Associate Professor at the Open Universiteit  in the Netherlands, Faculty of Management, as well as Visiting Professor at Hasselt University (Belgium). I work on topics of sustainable supply chain management, individual sustainability competences in education and business, social and sustainable entrepreneurship, systems thinking and -change, resilience and transition.