Frank Vandenbroucke is a Flemish academic and former politician of the Socialistische Partij Anders [SP.a]. He studied at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven [KUL], where he gained both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in economics, before completing an MPhil in economics at Cambridge University in 1982. It was also in England that he later received his D.Phil (from Oxford University’s Faculty of Social Studies in 1999), with a thesis on ethical economies, entitled Social Justice and Individual Ethics in an Open Society: Equality, Responsibility, and Incentives (Springer Publications, 2001).
Between his MPhil and his DPhil, Vandenbroucke worked as a research assistant at the KUL’s Centre for Economic Studies (1978–80) and in the Socialist Party’s research department, the SEVI (1982–85). And, it was in the Socialist Party that he undertook a successful political career, holding a variety of government positions, before devoting himself to academia in 2011.
Frank Vandenbroucke was elected to the Belgian Chamber of People’s Representatives for the first time in 1985 and was re-elected in 1987, 1991 and 1995, becoming the SP’s chairman and holding the positions of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Social Affairs and Pensions and Minister for Employment and Pensions. Vandenbroucke has also worked in the regional Flemish Government, where held the positions of Vice-Minister-President and Minister for Work, Education and Training.
Since 2009, he has held a number of academic positions at the University of Antwerp (Professor of Social Economic Analysis), the KUL and the University of Amsterdam (Den Uyl Chair Professor in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences). Frank Vandenbroucke’s academic interests focus on social systems and welfare policies and he has worked within the EU for the introduction of social policies, for example, for the provision of a stronger legal basis for welfare policies within the Lisbon Treaty. Frank Vandenbroucke is also active on a Belgian committee for the reform of national pension policy, advising the country’s finance ministers on how to improve the Belgian pension system going forward.
Information valid as sping 2016.