As of July 2021, René is the Office Manager of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, the Research School within the Netherlands and Flanders for Economic and Social History, a cooperation between 15 different universities and research institutes. Next to this, René is also involved (form September 2020 onward) in the CLARIAH PLUS project, providing logistic and research support related to the Work Package 4 (Socio-economic History) of this project. As of 1 January 2024, René will also be working as Platform Manager of the Platform Bottom-up Initiatives for Societal Change within the Institutions for Open Societies network.
René has extensive experience in paleography and archival research. Based on this experience, he was in charge of logistics and management of the Citizen Science project ‘Ja, ik wil!' ['Yes, I do!'] (2015-2017), executed by the Research Team Institutions for Collective Action. For this research team, he also performed archival research as well as logistic and management support for various national and international research projects, among which ERC- en NWO-funded projects.
Between 2015 and 2019, René was also Executive Director of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC). In this position he was closely involved with (inter alia) the IASC2017 Conferentie 'Practicing the Commons', (Utrecht, 10-15 juli 2017), attended by over 800 participants from 72 countries.
Prior to his activities in the field of History, René has worked for years as a state registered nurse within Dutch healthcare and adjacent sectors.
Book publication : https://uitgeverijprometheus.nl/boeken/ja-ik-wil-paperback/