The Senate of Corvinus and the Board of Trustees of the Foundation maintaining the university supported the appointment of Bruno

Bruno van Pottelsberghe is Professor of Economics and Innovation at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the Dean of the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, the Rector’s Advisor for Technology Transfer issues, as well as Chairman of the QTEM (Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management) Network, which he initiated and co-founded in 2012 and includes37 academic and corporate partners.

In his application file for rectorship, he opts for a bolder vision, a fine-tuned strategy and a more ambitious international networking and branding policy. On the 30th of April, Bruno van Pottelsberghe presented his rectorship programme to the academic community at an introductory forum, during which the audience composed of faculty, students and administrative staff could address questions to the candidate.

Since the candidate does not yet hold a professorship in Hungary, he was required to apply for a professorship in parallel with his application for rectorship. The evaluation was performed by the Academic Tenure and Promotion Committee (ATPC). On the basis of his extensive scientific achievements, significant teaching experience and years academic leadership duties, the ATPC unanimously recommended the appointment of Bruno van Pottelsberghe as full professor, which was also unanimously supported by the Senate with 26 votes in favour, 0 against and 0 invalid votes.

The ad hoc committee of the Senate, set up for this purpose, gave a detailed opinion on the application material, which can be viewed by university citizens at this link (accessible via the cusman password on the university website). As far as Bruno van Pottelsberghe’s professional career is concerned, his research qualities, leadership experience and extensive international network were highlighted, making him the right candidate to achieve Corvinus’ internationalisation strategy. The Senate recommended the approval of the candidate’s application (25 votes in favour, 1 against, 0 invalid votes) to the Board of Trustees of the Foundation maintaining the University.

The Maintainer of the Corvinus University of Budapest, the Maecenas Universitatis Corvini Foundation unanimously supported the application of Bruno van Pottelsberghe and will initiate his appointment as rector with the President of the Republic through the Ministry of Culture and Innovation.

The term of office of the new Rector will be four years and he is expected to take up his duties in early-August.

Professional career of Bruno van Pottelsberghe

Bruno van Pottelsberghe graduated from the Université Libre de Bruxelles with a degree in three disciplines: a bachelor in Economics (1990), a master in Economics (1992), a research master in Econometrics and a master in International Relations (1995). He obtained his PhD in 1998 and has subsequently held a number of positions at his alma mater: From 2007-2011 and then from 2021 onwards he was the Dean of the ULB Faculty Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. From 2014 onwards he has been the academic head of the Executive MBA programme and since 2004 he has been the chairman of the ULB Valuation Committee and advisor to the Rector on Technology Transfer. He is the founder and chair of the Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management Network (QTEM), a network of 37 academic and corporate partners. He has been a member of the European Advisory Board of AACSB from 2015-2018, and has been involved in the peer review process of 12 business schools applying for EQUIS accreditation worldwide.

Bruno van Pottelsberghe’s main research interests are economics of innovation, patent systems, intellectual property rights, technology transfer. He has an outstanding scientific track record, having authored or co-authored more than 60 scholarly articles, most of which have been published in recognised scholarly journals (22 Q1 and 11 Q2 articles), as well as having written two single-authored books and having acted as co-author and co-editor of three further books.  He has considerable teaching experience in bachelor, master and executive MBA programmes. 11 of his former PhD students have earned a doctoral degree and he is currently supervising the doctoral dissertation of 6 researchers. He has as well an experience outside academia, for two years as analyst at the OECD in Paris (1997 to 1999) and as Chief Economist of the European Patent Office (2005-2007).