Lieve Van den Block is Professor of Communication and Education at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and chair of the “Ageing and Palliative Care” Research Programme at the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University in Belgium. She holds a PhD in Medical Social Sciences and a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. Her work focuses on national and international public health and interventional research aimed at monitoring and improving palliative and end-of-life care for older people. Her research is multidisciplinary in nature and located at the intersection of primary care, palliative care, long-term care, and geriatrics. Her work places strong emphasis on studying palliative care both in community and institutional settings including palliative care for people affected by frailty and dementia. 

Lieve Van den Block was Principal Investigator and EU coordinator of PACE (Palliative Care for Older People), a collaborative research project funded under the EU FP7 Health programme and involving 12 EU partners (2014-2019). She was the Executive Coordinator of EURO IMPACT (European Intersectorial and Multidisciplinary Palliative Care Research Training; 2010-2014) and is currently the partner lead in INDUCT (Interdisciplinary Network for Dementia Utilising Current Technology) and DISTINCT (Dementia Intersectorial Strategy for Training and Innovation network for Current Technology), all funded by the European Commission as Marie Curie Initial Training Networks.

Prof. Van den Block received the prestigious Early Researcher Award of the European Association for Palliative Care, VUB Excellent PhD Supervision Award in 2018, and several other scientific awards for her work. She is editor-in-chief of the new Textbook on Palliative Care (Springer Nature) and editor and author of several other books. She has published more than 100 papers in leading peer-reviewed journals in medicine, public health and palliative care. Her work has been supported by grants from FP7, H2020, FWO, IWT and other leading medical and health charities. She is chair of the psychosocial evaluation committee of Flanders’ largest cancer charity Kom Op Tegen Kanker.