Didier Caluwaerts is an Associate Professor of Democratic Governance at the VUB. His research interests include deliberative and participatory democracy, democratic myopia and democratic regression. He recently set up a lab experiment with professor Michael MacKenzie (University of Pittsburgh) on deliberation and long-term thinking regarding environmental policy.

He was previously a post-doctoral researcher of the FWO at the VUB. His PhD (2011, VUB) dealt with deliberative democracy in divided societies. It was awarded the 2012 ECPR Jean Blondel PhD award and the 2016 Ignace Vanderschueren PhD Prize, and it was nominated for the Annual PhD Prize of the Dutch and Flemish Political Science Associations. He is also the winner of the 2010 ECPR Dirk Berg-Schlosser award, and co-organizer of the G1000 citizens' summit (2011).

In 2013 and 2014, Didier was a Democracy Fellow and a Frank Boas Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His stay at Harvard was made possible with grants from the Fulbright Commission and the Belgian American Educational Foundation.

In 2012, he was a visiting fellow at the research group on "Challenges to Democratic Representation" of the University of Amsterdam.