Jan Geens

City:: Brussels
Province:: Brussels
Postal Code:: 1000
Country:: Belgium

Street:

Ravensteingalerij 27/3

Flanders

Title:

First name:

Jan

Last name:

Geens

Jan Geens has the Belgian nationality, lives in Bonheiden in Belgium and is actually director for internationalization in VLHORA which is the official umbrella organisation of the 22 Flemish “hogescholen” or universities of applied science.
Specialist in Dutch literature, expertise in internationalization of HEI’s, in matters of migration and integration, LLL and senior people, cultural matters.
Within Pascal I am link person for the region of Flanders in the PURE-project , was peer in the review of the Helsinki region, did the on-line benchmarking for PURE in Flanders, wrote a contribution for the cluster social inclusion and citizenship and organized a conference on PURE in the city of Genk.

Interests/Expertise:

European Culture, citizenship and European identity; social capital and social inclusion of non-European cultures;

Historical research, enquiries and peer review

Recent research/consultancy:

Making Flanders attractive for foreign students: on-line enquiry and research: I was the coordinator and wrote the final report (in Dutch), see www.vlhora.be [1]
Why don’t Flemish students go studying abroad?: on-line enquiry and research: I was coordinator and wrote the final report (un Dutch), see www.vlhora.be [1]
As member of the Flemish Bologna-experts I helped in coordinating the project “Indicators internationalisation” that by June 2011 will result in a benchmark enquiry with which HEI’s and courses can measure their internationalisation.
I was coordinating the AMD-project set up by the Flemish ministry of education to attract more migrant students into teacher training.
I was involved in several Grundtvig-projects (transversal and learning partnerships)

coordinated by a German partner on cultural identity, LLL and cultural heritage. See www.pellionis.de/identity [2]

Recognitions, positions, memberships:

As general director of the university of applied science I had the opportunity to make the UAS grow from 360 students in 1983 till almost 3000 in 1998, due to extraordinary teamwork by the staff and by working with student and staff on the third mission. Employment in and around the university could grow steadily up to 250 jobs.
With UAS-Mechelen strong relations were set up with local and regional Industry. Community roles of the UAS were worked out by several teams of staff and students: so called “Praatcafés” were organised every two months (communicationstudents interviewing artists, ministers, singers etc..) open to the public; a concert, sponsored by industry and SME’s, was organised once a year in one of the big churches; theatre was played by staff and students; tea ceremonies were held in the UAS to make good contacts possible with the migrant community and associations; etc.
I am member of the board of the regional TV-station RTV (of which I am one of the founding fathers), also of TKO-Mechelen which is a second-chance educational school in the city of Mechelen. I am president of a foundation in remembrance of the national poet Guido Gezelle, and also of a regional cultural forum for senior people.

Selected publications:

Geens, J. ed., 1999. Die lernende Organisation, für eine bessere Verbindung zwischen Arbeitsmarkt und Hochschulunterricht, Brussels: VLHORA, 227 p.

Geens,J .ed, 2003. Op weg naar een Europese hoger onderwijsruimte . Brussels: VLHORA, 2003, 108 p.

Geens,J., 2009. Regional Development and Intercultural Dialogue, a cluster starter paper. Available at <http://pure-pascal.com [3] >

Geens, J., 2010. A European Cultural Identity? In search of a common heritage and of the duty to enhance it, in: Kurt, U. ed, 2010. Identität-Spurensuche / Identity - Uncovering Traces, Bielefeld, Medienverlag.

Geens, J. ed, 2010. Sharing European Identity through Music, Art and Literature, Syllabus .Mechelen: Sambucusforum, 123 p.