Jo Ritzen

Jozef Marie Mathias " Jo " Ritzen ( born October 3, 1945 in Heerlen ) is a Dutch economist and social democratic politician. From 2003 to February 2011, he was president of the University of Maastricht.

Life and work

Scribing attended from 1963 Bernardinus College in Heerlen. In 1970 he received from the Technical Hogeschool Delft (now Technical University of Delft ) a diploma in physics. He then received his PhD from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam with a thesis on the relationship between education, economic growth, and income distribution.

Before he came into politics, scoring worked, among others, at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Nijmegen (now Radboud University Nijmegen ) and the University of California, Berkeley.

He became Minister of Education, Culture and Science in 1989 under Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers. This office he continued even after 1994, when Prime Minister Wim Kok was. Between July and August 1994, he also held for a short time the post of Minister of Health under Ruud Lubbers.

As a minister, he led the 1990 OVCard, which allows Dutch students to use public transport free of charge. He also reformed the initial resistance of student organizations and university student finance - a step which abuts today widely supported.

After the end of the reign Kok in 1998, he was one of the 30 Vice- President of the World Bank.

In 2003 he follow a call from the University of Maastricht. As president, he has placed the University of internationalization and innovative teaching and research to the goal.