Professor Wim Blockmans

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• Wim Blockmans

Professor Wim Blockmans studied History at the University of Ghent where he obtained his PhD (cum laude) in 1973. He continued to work at the University of Ghent as senior assistant until 1975. In 1974, he also took on the post of Reader in History at the Provincial Institute for Translators and Interpreters in Ghent, which he continued to do until 1988, even after he took up a post in the Netherlands in 1975. In 1975, he took the opportunity to work as a historian among social scientists as Reader in Social and Political History in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. This led to a professorship in 1980. From 1980 to 1989 he was also Dean of that same Faculty. By 1987, the time was right to move closer to the centre of historical research and education, and he moved to Leiden as Professor of Medieval History. During this period he supervised over 35 PhD students. Nevertheless, the social sciences still continued to hold an attraction and he was also in charge of Contemporary European History in the Leiden Faculty of Social Sciences from 1993 to 2000. Since 2002, Wim Blockmans has held the post of Rector of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. In this capacity, he supervises the academic programme, the selection of fellows, and daily running of this institute.