Dr Katrien Maes

Organisation

League of European Research Universities (LERU)

Job title

Deputy Secretary-General

Biography 

Katrien Maes has, since 2004, worked for and is currently Deputy Secretary-General of the League of European Research Universities. LERU is an association of twenty-three European universities that share the values of high-quality teaching within an environment of world-class research. As an active stakeholder in Brussels, LERU promotes the role and values of research universities in the knowledge society across Europe and beyond.

Katrien has worked on many issues for LERU, in particular on doctoral education, research careers, professional development, gender equality and diversity, impact and open science. She is an expert in EU research, innovation and higher education policies and programmes such the European Research Area, Open Science, Horizon 2020/Europe, Erasmus+. She has served on many EU expert groups and committees; she is currently the chair of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions Horizon 2020 Advisory Group to the European Commission.

Originally from Belgium, Katrien lived and worked in the US from 1986 until 2002, first as a doctoral student in linguistics, then as an assistant professor of Italian language and foreign language pedagogy at the University of Delaware. During that time her research interests focused on syntax, second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning. Her teaching subjects ranged from Italian language and linguistics to foreign language acquisition and pedagogy for young and adult second language learners.