Willem combines social and natural science to find innovative ways of incentivising pro-environmental behavioural change when utilising natural resources in economies.  He joined Stellenbosch University’s Department of Agricultural Economics (www.sun.ac.za) in 2022 where he draws on 15 years of professional scientific research experience gained at the CSIR (www.csir.co.za) to support students exploring and developing their potential to become responsible and proud citizens contributing to broader society.  Being an agricultural economist by training his teaching and research focus areas include:

·         agricultural resource economics

·         environmental and resource economics

·         economic assessments on natural resource management policy and decision support systems;

·         economic assessment for water management strategies;

·         multi-criteria decision-making applied to natural resource management;

·         development of alternative indicators of economic development;

·         non-market valuation of natural capital stocks and flows;

·         valuation of externalities (mainly pollution);

·         economic assessments on waste management;

·         economic assessments on alien invasive species management;

·         behavioural economics applications to natural resource management;

·         sustainability assessments for agriculture and the agricultural/mining interface;

·         multi-period crop and livestock enterprise budgeting;

·         economic assessments for climate change impacts on agriculture;

·         climate change risk profiling and mitigation planning for agriculture;

 

Willem is skilled in preparing and delivering proposals and presentations, including communicating complex scientific and economic concepts in an understandable way to diverse audiences.  He remains results-driven and achieves project objectives via thorough planning of project lifecycles, resulting in a track record of completing projects on time and within budget thereby displaying the following research competencies:

·         Establishing critical pathways of a project when planning time schedules.

·         Compile and manage budgets of large research projects.

·         Manage tender and proposal drafting processes.

·         Manage and lead projects to meet deadlines.

·         Identify and manage risk in research projects.

·         Draft and submit progress reports to clients.

·         Remain focussed on ToR and re-negotiate with client if necessary.

·         Delegate tasks to individual team member strengths and capacity.

·         Establish and maintain clear lines of communication.

 

Since joining Stellenbosch University he focused on establishing a new internal network; and developing his teaching skills while developing a new Masters programme entitled: “Integrated Production Management” which will be launched in 2026.  He redesigned the pre- and post-graduate modules which he teaches and coordinates.  He also serves as the Departmental Ethics Screening Committee reviewer and on the Departmental postgraduate application assessment committee.  He played a major role in a recent Departmental programme curriculum revision exercise and successfully supervised several Masters students while continue building his publication record.

 

Willem obtained an NRF (www.nrf.co.za) rating in 2012 that was updated in 2020.  He serve as an associated editor of Journal of Environmental Management since 2013 and as reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals (Water Resources Research; Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Waste Management, WaterSA, South African Journal of Science, Agrekon).  He also serves as an external reviewer for the South African Water Research Commission (www.wrc.gov.za) and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) (http://www.sciencenewzealand.org/) annual funding calls.  He served on the CSIR science leadership panel from 2014 – 2022 while regularly advising the South African parliamentary portfolio committee on water and sanitation.  He served as lead environmental economic assessor on SANBI’s (South African National Biodiversity Institute) ASRARP (alien species risk analysis review panel).  He also served on the steering committee for the Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy.  His last major contribution at the CSIR was his participation as lead-economist in drafting the Waste Tyre management plan of South Africa.

 

His current h-index is 20 with more than 2400 citations from 37 peer reviewed articles published in scientific journals, 23 publications in popular media, 117 technical research reports, 5 published book chapters and 11 policy and legislative documents.