Professor Walter T Claassen

Specialist skills:  Professor Walter T Claassen has extensive experience in academia management, leadership and research. He has been actively involved in restructuring and innovation in the higher education environment. His expertise includes the current rethinking of universities regarding alignment with the digital era and the digital economy, ICT, digital skills development, and human capacity development in the digital economy. .

Highlighted experience and positions: He has been Director of Research at Stellenbosch University and Vice-Rector (Academic) and Vice-Rector (Research). The Vice-Rector also acted as Chairperson of the respective Senate committees. This work involved developing the institution into one of the foremost research-intensive universities in South Africa.

Professor Walter T Claassen was also a Senior Advisor: Research in the Department of Information Systems, University of the Western Cape (UWC).

He has a long history with the e-Skills Institute, including as a Senior Researcher and Management Committee Member in the Research Network for e-Skills (ResNeS).

He was a Trustee of the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust and a Founding Member of the Academy for Science in South Africa.

Other current positions: Prof Claassen is a Senior Researcher and Consultant in the Division for Institutional Planning of UWC. (During the reporting period, he was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Systems and from that position was also involved in research in the Western Cape e-Skills CoLab: e-Inclusion and Social Innovation from October to December 2016.)