From 2004-2008, she was on academic leave, as advisor at the European Commission (BEPA Bureau of European Policy Analysis). She is currently a Senior Fellow at Bruegel and a CEPR Research Fellow and a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences. She was the President-Elect of EARIE (European Association for Research in Industrial Economics), is currently the President of Belgian FNS-FNRS Scientific Committee on Social Sciences and serves on the ERC panel for SH1 Advanced and Starting Grants. She is a member of the Innovation4Growth Expert Group advising EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn. She is also co-promoting ECOOM, the Flemish Center for R&D Monitoring. She was a visiting scholar at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Sloan School of Management, MIT, Stern Business School, NYU (US), UCL (BE), ECARES/ ULBrussels, (BE) Paris I (FR) UPF & UAB-Barcelona (ES), UMaastricht (NL).

With her research concentrated in the fields of industrial organisation, international economics and strategy, innovation and science, she has authored numerous publications in leading international journals. Her research combines analytical frameworks, using micro-economics, game theory and economics of information models, with empirical, mostly econometric testing on large datasets. Specific recent topics include incentives for innovation activities, international technology transfers through MNEs, impact on local R&D of multinational competition, internal and external technology sourcing, alliances and their stability, inter-company technology transfers through cooperation, young innovative companies, industry science links and their impact on firm’s innovative productivity, performance of technology transfer offices at universities, designing university spin-off contracts, explaining scientific productivity: persistency and skewness, researchers’ international mobility. She coordinates a large, multidisciplinary research project on radical innovations. Recent policy topics include: university governance and higher education reforms, young radical innovators, innovation policy indicators, innovation strategies for catching-up countries, innovation for climate change.

Mandate ERC Scientific Council: 01 Jan 2013 - 31 Dec 2018 (2nd term)