Luc Soete
By: Jacqui Bealing
Last updated: Monday, 18 January 2016
Professor Luc Soete is Rector Magnificus – the highest ranking academic within the University’s Executive Board responsible for education and research – of Maastricht University.
He has an economics degree from Ghent University and a PhD in economics from the University of Sussex. He then embarked on a research career in Britain and the United States, producing new economic insights on the Schumpeterian dynamics of innovation.
In 1986 Luc was appointed Professor of International Economic Relations at the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. Two years later, he established the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, which quickly grew into a leading research institute in the economic analysis of technological development and innovation and became part of United Nations University in 2005.
He was appointed Dean of the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance in 2010. Professor Soete is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Dutch Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy.
He is Chairman of the high-level group ‘Research, Innovation and Science Policy Experts’ at the European Commission. Over the past 30 years, Luc has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books, articles and book chapters. His publications cover the broad fields of theoretical, empirical and policy studies of technological development and, in particular, innovation.