Jakob van der Waarden has been involved in bridging the worlds of science, politics and practice in different roles. He likes to collaborate with people who continuously ‘push the barriers’ for social improvement. He started his career as an economist and strategist at the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Education, Culture and Science. Jakob headed policy units at the Childcare directorate (Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment) and the directorate for Highter Education (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science) before joining the Arts Council as a director. Currently, he is the director of the Dutch National Growth Fund. For many years, he has been a board member of the Dutch National Think Tank.