Latin-Mathematics (College of Saint Gregory, Ledeberg, Belgium)
History: candidate and licence (Ghent State University, 1977 – greatest distinction)
Aggegration in history (Ghent State University, 1978 – distinction)
PhD in arts and letters (group History, Ghent State university, 1987 – greatest distinction)

1978: cultural administration, province of Eastern Flanders.
1978-1979: military service (field artillery)
1979: pre-doctoral researcher National Fund for Scientific Research of Belgium
1980-1988: assistant State university of Ghent (collaborator of RUG, prof. dr. W. Prevenier).
1989-1993: qualified (tenured) post-doc researcher National Fund for Scientific Research of Belgium.
1993-1999: director of research, National Fund forScientific Research Flanders
1999-2004: tenured assistant professor University of Ghent (research domain: history of the late middle ages
2004-2010: full professor University of Ghent
2010-present: full professor in the rank of ordinarius, Ghent University

2008-2012: director of education, faculty of arts and philosophy (Ghent university)
2012-2014: dean of the faculty of arts and philosophy (Ghent university)
2014-2018: re-elected dean of the faculty of arts and philosophy (Ghent university)

Professeur invité, Université de Bourgogne (Dijon), April-May 2000
Directeur de recherches invité, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), April 2005
ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles): chaire Francqui au titre belge, academic year 2005-2006
Université Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne): chaire ‘Alphonse Dupront’ March-April 2007

Commander in the national order of the Crown (April 6th 2010)
Member of the Academia Europaea, 2007.
Member of the Royal Flemish Academy for sciences and the arts of Belgium (section of human sciences) 2008 – president of the Commission for Historical Sciences of the Academy since 2011

1977: André Schaepdijver award (Association of history alumni of Ghent university)
1981: History Award, province of Eastern Flanders
1989: laureate Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium
1990: laureate 'prix Anton Bergmann' (1985 - 1990) of the 'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique''classe des lettres' for a publication in the field of urban history

Member of the committee for history of the Crédit communal de Belgique, afterwards Dexia bank, (from 2000 secretary-treasurer), as a direct successor nowadays: the committee Pro Civitate for Urban history of both francophone and dutchspeaking academies of Belgium (RASAB: Royal academies of sciences and the arts of Belgium), president
Member of the ‘Commission Internationale d’histoire des villes’ (International commission for the history of Towns), in 2002. In 2007: secretary
Member of the 'executive committee' van de European Association of Urban Historians (from 1996 onwards), president 2008-2010, honorary member 2012-present

Several internal (Belgian, Flemish) mandates for individual researchers (pre- and post-doc) obtained from the National fund for scientific research (FWO) and from the Dutch Agency for scientific research (FWO-NWO). In total: funding for 9 PhD’s that were successful, several of them obtained in the meantime professorships at Ghent university, the VUB (free university of Brussels) and the KUL (catholic university of Leuven). For the moment 6 more PhD’s are currently being prepared or are being written.
From 1999 till 2017: director of four successive IAP’s (Interuniversity Attraction Pole programme) funded by the federal scientific organization belspo, in the field of comparative urban history concerning the middle ages and early modern period. Each of the programmes provides a funding of in the average 2,5 million euro and encompasses Belgian universities (Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Louvain, Namur), Dutch universities (Leiden, Utrecht) and federal scientific institutions (Royal library, Royal museum of fine arts).
In the context of the IAP’s from 2002 onwards scientific editor of the series Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800), edited byBrepols (Turnhout, Belgium). So far 37 volumes have been edited, several of them dealing with comparative urban history, with a clear preference for the comparison between Flemish/Netherlandish and Italian cities.

Projects

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Teaching