Marieke Carpentier is a Senior Research Consultant in Labour Market and Education within the Skills, Labour Market and Social Policy team at IDEA Consult. She has a broad interest in socio-economic themes at the intersection of labour market, education and social policy. In her work, she operates at the boundaries between different policy domains, actively listening to and bringing together diverse perspectives – from policymakers, practitioners and target groups.

Marieke has strong analytical and methodological skills, further developed during her doctoral research. Driven by genuine curiosity, she seeks to understand what motivates people, which barriers they encounter and how policies translate into practice. She combines in-depth, empathetic research with a strong focus on policy relevance. At IDEA, she enthusiastically applies her expertise to evaluate, inform and inspire policies, programmes and projects, always taking into account the complex reality in which different interests and perspectives meet.

Marieke graduated from KU Leuven with a Bachelor’s degree in Sinology (cum laude), a Master’s degree in Management (magna cum laude) and a Master’s degree in Applied Economics, specialising in personnel and organisation (magna cum laude). In 2019, she obtained her PhD in Applied Economics from Ghent University.

At IDEA, Marieke has worked on various research and evaluation assignments. She was project leader of a study on school health policy commissioned by the Department of Care. For Leerpunt, she contributed to an evaluation of school support projects focusing on broad basic care and enhanced care. For the Department of Education and Training, she contributed to an evaluation of measures for sick pupils. She is also experienced in labour market policy: she led a co-creative policy trajectory on youth unemployment in the city of Antwerp and evaluated the functioning of sectoral covenants and learning ecosystems for the Department of Work and Social Economy.