Since 2017, Erik Heijmans heads the Education Support Centre of Wageningen University. This department with around 40 committed, creative and inspiring staff members supports the University’s lecturers in offering good quality and innovative education (including high cognitive learning activities, blended learning, personalised trajectories, online education, use of multimedia, pedagogical advise, society based education, redesign labs, pedagogical training and the University Teaching Qualification).
For more than 15 years, Erik has been educational programme director of the interdisciplinary study programmes BSc and MSc International Land and Water Management at WUR and together with Delft University of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) he developed and implemented a joint master programme (MSc Metropolitan Analysis Design & Engineering) in Amsterdam at the AMS Institute based on Living lab principles and focusing on circularity of resource use and sustainable and human urban development.
Erik, trained as a tropical agricultural engineer, worked on curriculum development and quality assurance in various countries including Ethiopia, Yemen, Benin, South Africa and Vietnam. Finally, he is a certified trainer for the European Commission.