Since the year 2000, thanks to the continued support of the “Bernard Vanommeslaghe Chair”, ECARES has been able to promote research and training activities on the topic of market regulation and liberalization. Several prominent academic speakers have come to ECARES as a result.

The Bernard Vanommeslaghe Chair has also allowed ECARES to more directly support young researchers. In particular, we were able to offer part-time post-doctoral grants to Isabelle Brocas (Ph.D. from Toulouse, now an Assistant Professor at University of Southern California) and Nicolas Sahuguet (Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, now an Assistant Professor at HEC Montreal). And since January 2008, it has allowed ECARES to welcome Antonio Estache, who organized the Chair until 2018 (on top of being, since October 2008, Professor at ULB), until Mathias Dewatripont took over this role.

Bernard Vanommeslaghe holds degrees from Université libre de Bruxelles and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While pursuing a high-level career in the private sector, in particular as President of ‘Groupe Van Dijk’, he has been actively involved in the academic and public sectors. He is Professor Emeritus from Université libre de Bruxelles and was a Member of the Belgian ‘Commission Bancaire et Financière’, and of the ‘Groupe d’Experts en Matière de Libéralisation du Secteur de l’Electricité’. His commitment to our University and his interest for the issue of market liberalization and deregulation led him to offer to sponsor a Chair dedicated to this topic. Thanks to his generous support, ECARES has received resources that it can use to develop research and training activities in this area, in accordance with its double mission of academic research and doctoral training.