CHRIS de NEUBOURG, Maastricht University
The Maastricht Graduate School of Governance of which I am the academic director, was one of the first European institutional members of APPAM. The School was established in 2005 with the mission to train professional policy analysts and academic policy researchers and to engage in policy research in an international comparative perspective. In setting up the School we learned a lot from APPAM members. I was introduced to APPAM as an organization and several APPAM members provided advise and guidance in designing our masters and Ph.D. curricula. I would be happy to return their efforts by serving on APPAM’s Policy Council. This would also provide an opportunity to widen the view of the organization beyond the traditional borders and to contribute to APPAM as a truly internationally oriented organization. I plan to bring in a more global perspective and to stimulate worldwide exposure, being convinced that both the perspective and the exposure enrich academic research and policy debates. At Maastricht University I am Professor of Economics. My initial academic training in Philosophy, Sociology and of course Economics was mainly taken on the European continent although I have had the privilege to spent several semesters as guest lecturer and visiting scholar with U.S. colleagues. My research focus has shifted from labor economics towards the economics of social security and social protection. Recently I started to engage in migration studies as well. I am looking forward to keep on contributing to the scholarly debates within APPAM and its academic community.