Hans Martens (PhD) is European Schoolnet’s Digital Citizenship Programme Manager. He is responsible for the Digital Citizenship strategy of the organisation, managing a team dedicated to a wide variety of public and/or private projects covering aspects ranging from online safety to digital skills.

Within this context, Hans is leading the Better Internet for Kids project which implements, under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), on behalf of the European Commission, a comprehensive range of digital tools and services that help make the internet a trusted environment for children through actions that empower and protect them online, sharing knowledge, resources, and practices between national providers of the services – the Insafe-INHOPE Safer Internet Centres – and to provide services to their users, including industry. The Better Internet for Kids portal was launched at www.betterinternetforkids.eu by the end of October 2015.

Furthermore, Hans oversees European Schoolnet’s involvement in a variety of other digital citizenship campaigns, partnerships, platforms and projects, including, the eSkills 2015-2016 campaign, the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, the eSafety Label, the Web We Want, and I-LINC.

With more than five years of research and teaching experience at the University of Antwerp, combined with an advisory role in various Flemish, European, and American media literacy networks and projects, Hans joined European Schoolnet in February 2012, focusing initially on data analysis and evaluation. Building up project management experience from 2013 onwards, he was in charge of the overall project coordination and management of the Better Internet for Kids Network Pilot project in 2014, before taking his current role as Digital Citizenship Team and Programme Manager

His key tasks include governance, management and outreach, team and project coordination, liaising with various European Commission units, as well as being the point of contact for other key strategic partners, from government, civil society and industry.