Peter van der Knaap, PhD has served as Director of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands since September 2021. Prior to this role, he was Director of SWOV, the Dutch Institute for Road Safety Research. Earlier, as Research Director at the Netherlands Court of Audit, he led performance auditing activities, and at the Ministry of Finance he was responsible for policy evaluation across the Dutch central government.
Dr. van der Knaap holds a PhD in Public Administration, with research focusing on decision-making within the European Union. Throughout his career, he has promoted the use of research and evaluation to strengthen public policymaking and support a learning-oriented approach to government. He is actively engaged in the international evaluation community as President of the European Evaluation Society, Vice-Chair of OECD DAC EvalNet, and member of the editorial board of Evaluation.