Dr. Maarten Vansteenkiste is as full professor in the development and motivation psychology connected to Ghent University. In his research, he attempts to expand the Self-Determination Theory, a well-known and strong empirically validated theory. He is considered an expert worldwide in the motivation psychology and he has together with Bart Soenens, his friend and academic companion, written the book ‘Vitamines voor groei: Ontwikkeling voeden vanuit de Zelf-Determinatie Theorie’ (Vansteenkiste & Soenens, 2015) (“Vitamins to grow: Feeding development from the Self-Determination Theory”). He is interested in both the theoretical and empirical study of the link between Self-Determination and other motivational frameworks and he uses the theory as a source of inspiration for the study of motivational dynamics in a range of life domains like education, upbringing, healthcare, ecology, work and sport and movement. He has frequently published studies on these topics in top journals in the international literature. He was in 2019 and 2020 recognized as a “higly cited research”. Currently, he supervises numerous postdoctoral, doctoral, and master students. He also gives numerous lectures about the relevance of the Self-Determination Theory for a broad public of teachers, sportcoaches, managers, therapists and parents. Since the start of the crisis, he has been mapping the motivation of the population together with his team (www.motivationbarometer.com) to give advice on policy. He was a guest member of Celeval 2.0 and is currently a member of the GEMS.