Professor Dr. Philippe Vandekerckhove, CEO of the Belgian Red Cross-Flanders, received the PRoF Honorary Award 2016. He was applauded by Professor Dr. Renaat Peleman, holder of the first PRoF Chair, for his sustained commitment to innovation, research and professionalism in the international aid sector. 

Philippe Vandekerckhove obtained his PhD in clinical biology at the KU Leuven and continued his clinical training in Johannesburg, Hawaii, Rotterdam and New York. He was clinical director at the University Hospital Leuven until he joined the Red Cross in 2003. In the meantime, he followed various management training programmes at e.g. the Harvard Business School. He is currently a guest lecturer at KU Leuven and Ghent University and has published over 80 articles in peer review journals. 

As CEO of the Belgian Red Cross-Flanders, he is helping the Red Cross transform into a high-performing, future-proof organisation. To do so, he invests heavily in both fundamental and applied research, focusing on donorship, platelets, first aid education and disaster preparedness, all topics that are still under-researched today. The results are impressive, to say the least. The Red Cross-Flanders has thus, for example, developed evidence-based first aid guidelines that are now being used in more than 70 countries with a cumulative population of 3 billion people.  

Philippe Vandekerckhove is without question an ardent believer of innovation: “The international aid sector still relies too much on good intentions and tireless effort instead of research and innovation. At Belgian Red Cross-Flanders, we deliberately choose to excel in a limited number of niches, using evidence-based practice. We have thus in recent years become a leading organisation worldwide. As Nelson Mandela put it: A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”