Kathleen Torrance

Rijks Innovatie Community

Kathleen is the programme manager of the Rijks Innovatie Community (RIC). RIC is the interdepartmental community of the Dutch Government which started in 2018. RIC aims to nurture the flow of innovation knowledge and experience and to facilitate interdepartmental collaboration in innovation. The community consists of around 5000 innovation professionals and civil servants interested in innovation from national, regional and local government organisations. Kathleen heads a very small – but very motivated! – team which facilitates and drives the community, amongst others by offering meet ups and hosting a digital collaboration platform. One of RICs current activities is organising INNOvember2026: the fourth edition of our bi-annual congress, with activities and sessions on innovation throughout the month of November.

Before this, Kathleen was deputy director and staff member of the Advisory Board for Science, Technology and Innovation (AWTI) – the central advisory body in the Netherlands on governmental policymaking in these fields. In this capacity she was the main author and project manager of a succession of reports on innovation policy.

Going back further, Kathleen had a background and Ph.D., in pedagogics and educational studies, and had also published in this area.