Steven Knotter, M.Sc., is Senior Expert in Regional and Urban Development. Over the past years, he has gained extensive experience in numerous strategic support processes for smart and sustainable regions and cities, combining analytical and participatory components, as well as in the evaluation and monitoring of European and Flemish policy programmes and publicly funded organisations.

He led, among others, the development of smart specialisation strategies in the South Netherlands and the Brussels Capital Region, and contributed to various strategic regional and local development studies for several provinces and cities (Smart Specialisation East Flanders, care economy Antwerp, regional and rural development in West Flanders and Limburg, the cities of Antwerp, Ghent, Roeselare, Hasselt, Breda, …).

Steven has worked on various evaluations and studies related to innovation, entrepreneurship and regional development. At the Flemish level, he is involved in the implementation and evaluation of cluster policy, contributed to the preparation of the new Flemish ERDF Operational Programme 2023-2027, and evaluated the Flemish pre-starter support scheme as well as the VLAIO contract on entrepreneurship and innovation acceleration. In the field of rural development, he supports the VLM with the evaluation of LEADER and has led studies on biomass valorisation from landscape management and on the contribution of local rural projects to the sustainable food transition.

Steven studied social (economic) geography at Utrecht University (NL). In 2007, he completed a Research Master in Human Geography & Planning, specialising in regional economic development. He has been working at IDEA Consult since early 2008.