dr. Henk van den Heuvel

Dr Henk van den Heuvel has a broad experience in Higher Education in an international perspective, in particular in developing contexts. He was trained as a political scientist with a specialisation in International Relations at Radboud University (Nijmegen) In 2008 he obtained his PhD degree in organisation sciences from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. During his PhD studies, he worked as a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Over the years Henk has gained a thorough knowledge of the functioning of Higher Education institutes (in international contexts) and as a result he has a profound understanding of challenges and opportunities regarding institutional transformation of Higher Education institutes and institutional development as well as change management in general. For the last 20 years Henk has been involved in projects mainly in southern and eastern Africa and South (East) Asia – both as project manager, team leader and/or content specialist, of which the past 10 years particularly in Higher Education. His expertise lies primarily in project management, institutional development, organisational analysis, change management and leadership development.

Since August 2015, Henk is Team Leader of the ExiST project in Ethiopia, Excellence in Science and Technology, heading the MDF Training & Consultancy team to assist and advise the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia in establishing three Centres of Excellence, namely in Bahir Dar (Textile & Fashion Technology), Jimma (Climate Smart Agriculture, Water and Energy) and Mekelle (Solar & Wind Energy). The ExiST project is funded by the German Development Bank (KfW).

Moreover, since 2015 Henk is the responsible project manager of the EPE-project in South Africa, Enhancing Postgraduate Environments, leading a consortium of six European and six South African universities. This project is co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus Plus programme Capacity Building in Higher Education.

Between 2011 and 2015 Henk was project manager on the Dutch side of the STRONGBOW project – Sustainable TouRism based On Natural resource management with Gender Balance tOwards Women – coordinated by the Horn of Africa Regional Environmental Center/Network, based in Addis Ababa, and funded by Nuffic (NICHE/ETH/023). Curriculum review, amongst others with the inclusion of internships, improved university - industry relations and practical skills training, was a key component of this project. Between 2011 and 2014, Henk was managing a project to develop, test and implement the Ethiopian National Qualifications Framework in Ethiopia, with the South African Qualifications Agency (SAQA) as consortium partner.

In addition, between 2009 and 2012 Henk has worked for 3,5 years as a trainer/consultant a Nuffic funded project in Indonesia to help Strengthening Institutional Management of 4 public universities in Eastern Indonesia (SIM4-project). In the final year he was involved in the End-term Evaluation of this project. In the same period, Henk served as a process consultant to three public universities in the Leadership and Management Capacity Development (LMCD) project in Ethiopia, funded by Nuffic.

In addition to project management, process consultancy and training, Henk has conducted several project reviews and evaluations. For example, in 2013 Henk was the team leader of an End-Term Evaluation of the project ‘Stimulating a culture of scientific and technological excellence in Africa’ funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amongst others, the Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS) and the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), both based in Nairobi, were evaluated.

In 2014 he was the co-reviewer of the POHE project, Strengthening Profession Oriented Higher Education in Vietnam (NICHE/VNM/103). Between 2015 and 2016 he completed two assignments for INCLUDE Knowledge Platform on Inclusive Development Policies.

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