Dirk Van Damme is currently Head of CERI (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation) in the Directorate for Education at the OECD in Paris.
He holds a PhD degree in educational sciences from Ghent University and is also professor of educational sciences in the same university (since 1995). He also was part-time professor in comparative education at the Free University of Brussels (1997-2000) and visiting professor of comparative education at Seton Hall University, NJ, USA (2001-2008).
He has been professionally involved in educational policy development as deputy director of the cabinet of the Flemish Minister of education Luc Van den Bossche (1992-1998), as general director of the Flemish rectors’ conference VLIR (2000-2003), as expert for the implementation of the Bologna Declaration for Ms Marleen Vanderpoorten, Flemish Minister of education (2002-2003) and as director of the cabinet of Mr Frank Vandenbroucke, Flemish minister of education (2004-2008). In 2004 he served also as executive director of the RAGO, the organization of public schools in the Flemish Community of Belgium.
Besides that, he has served as an expert on issues related to international higher education policy, quality assurance and accreditation for several international organisations, as board member of QANU, the quality assurance agency for the Dutch universities, as member of the scientific board of AQA, the Austrian Quality Agency in higher education, as expert member of the OECD review of schooling in Scotland, and as member of the Committee for the external evaluation of the University of Luxembourg.
His work focuses on higher education policy development, innovation in education and comparative analyses of educational systems.