Thomas Lans
Thomas Lans was born on April 15, 1977, in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. After secondary school, he started to study plant breeding and crop protection (plant sciences) at Wageningen University with a special interest in education and training in horticulture. After two technical oriented theses, one conducted in South Africa, Thomas developed his competence in the field of educational sciences further in a six months thesis project on the role of corporate training in strategic innovations in the greenhouse sector.
He graduated in March 2001 at Wageningen University and worked from June 2001 until the end of 2004 as a junior researcher at the group of Education and Competence studies (ECS) of Wageningen University. The two main projects he was involved in were Brainport, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV), and the project ILE (inspiring learning environments for entrepreneurs), commissioned by the Innovation Network. The Brainport project was initiated to put lifelong learning for the agri-food sector into practice by developing long-term learning trajectories. The ILE project was conducted with the primary aim to strengthen learning and innovation competence of entrepreneurs in horticulture.
His PhD research focussed on entrepreneurial competence in the agri-food sector. Concurrently with his PhD studies at the ECS-group, from 2005 to 2007, he worked in a large scale policy support programme on knowledge circulation and knowledge transfer between agricultural education and research. From 2007, Thomas' work became more focussed on entrepreneurial learning and learning for and through entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he became a member of WAEGHALS, the Wageningen Entrepreneurial Group on Health, Agri-food & Life Sciences. In 2008, Thomas became a project leader in DAFNE, the Dutch Agro-Food Network of Entrepreneurship, a Dutch entrepreneurship centre. Under this umbrella, a new course aiming to foster the entrepreneurial spirit of MSc students at Wageningen University was developed.
At present Thomas is an assistant professor at ECS. His research interests include assessment and impact measurement in entrepreneurship education and (situated) entrepreneurial learning.