Han Aarts

Professional career history
Han Aarts has been director of the Maastricht University centre for international cooperation in academic development (‘Mundo’) since its establishment in 1997.

Han obtained a Master degree in Human Geography and Development Studies from the Free University in Amsterdam (1984). He started his professional career at Nuffic, the Netherlands organization for international cooperation in The Hague, where he worked in various capacities from 1984 until 1987. In 1987 he moved to Maastricht, to work with the Rijksuniversiteit Limburg as its first international policy advisor. In 1989 he was appointed head of the Office for International Cooperation, a position he held until 1997. In the period 1993-1997 he founded with several colleagues the University of Limburg International Centre for Educational cooperation (ULICE), the predecessor of Mundo.

As director of Mundo since 1997 he has worked on in all aspects of cooperation with partner institutions in the Global South, with an emphasis on knowledge capacity development. Han worked in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In recent years, he has been predominantly active in South East Asia, notably in Indonesia.

Han is also co-founder of the Netherlands Platform for International Education (PIE) (2004) and is currently one of the two co-chairs of this organisation. Han also has been an active member of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) since its foundation in 1989. In 1999 he hosted the annual EAIE Conference in Maastricht. Furthermore he initiated the EAIE Expert Community on Educational Cooperation with Developing Countries (EDC). In 2007 he received EAIE’s Constance Meldrum Award for vision and leadership in international education.

Areas of expertise
international strategy, international relations management, development cooperation, educational cooperation, project management.