Hans Heijke is Honorary Professor of Education and the Labour Market in the Department of Economics at Maastricht University. He founded the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) at Maastricht University in 1986 and has been its professor-director until 2008. From 1969 until the founding of the ROA he was affiliated with the Netherlands Economic Institute at Rotterdam, where he held, from ‘74 on, the position of Head of the Division of Labour Market Research. In 1970 he finished his studies in economics at the University of Amsterdam and in 1979 he obtained his doctorate at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Hans Heijke has been a consultant of the OECD, a member of the Committee for Educational Affairs of the Socio-Economic Council (SER), a member of the Education Council, a member of the Programming Council for Educational Research (PROO) of the National Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and a member of the Advisory Committees on Labour Statistics and Education Statistics and the Advisory Council on Social Statistics. He has been Secretary of the European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) from 1993 until 2008.