dr. PBM (Pieter) Vandekerckhove

Biography

Pieter Vandekerckhove is a guest researcher at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management and Erasmus MC, and Assistant Professor of Patient-centred Healthcare Entrepreneurship at the Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship, TU Delft. He obtained his PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam (2023) on generative co-design for digital health.

As an adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivor, Pieter brings lived experience to the core of his work. He integrates patient care and delivery, science and methodology, and industry and startups to build sustainable, integrated care pathways — horizontally across fragmented pathways over time, and vertically rooted in the tacit experience of patients, professionals and organisations. His transdisciplinary approach draws on philosophy, health economics, policy and law, health services and implementation science, design science, and innovation strategy, with particular attention to business models and misaligned incentives in health systems.

His work focuses on AYA cancer care, oncology innovation and patient co-design. He co-built a living lab for patient co-design of trials and patient recruitment, and living-lab infrastructure for technology development across European hospital centres for AYA care. He leads innovation, health technology assessment and valorisation in the iCell consortium, contributes to Creating ValEU (EIT Health), and works across robotics in oncology, particle therapy and omics-based drug discovery platforms. He has developed healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship education at bachelor, master and executive level for Erasmus University, Erasmus MC and TU Delft.

Pieter is founder of Add Perspective, runs the Patient-Centered Innovation and Entrepreneurship Network, and has served on the board of vzw Kinderkankerfonds since 2019.