Theo Jans

Decision making and European Governance.

Professional experience

Dr M. Theo Jans (BE) is currently affiliated with EIPA as an External Expert. Between 2009 and 2020, Theo Jans was an Expert at EIPA; he first was a Senior Lecturer in the European Decision Making Unit; he then was Acting Head of the European Public Management Unit. He studied Political Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the European University Institute (EUI). He received his PhD in Political Sciences from the VUB in 2001. His doctoral dissertation “Federalism and the regulation of the ethnonational conflict. Joint decision-making in Canada and Belgium” analysed bargaining processes in complex political environments.

Theo has worked as a junior professor at Vesalius College (Brussels), at the Brussels School for International Studies (BSIS), at the University of Kent in Canterbury, and at the VUB’s Politics Department and its Institute for European Studies (IES). He has been in charge of the IES Training Unit (2006-2008) and has organised several trainings on decision making for the European Commission and the Belgian Federal Government.

His main research interests are European governance, policy-making processes, federalism and institutional conflict regulation. These interests have resulted in several research projects on regional representations and on European integrated product policy. He has published book chapters and articles on conflict regulation, federalism, intergovernmental relations and governance.