PhD candidate Thomas Derave obtained the academic grade of PhD in Business Economics on 26 June 2025, defending his thesis ‘An Ontology-Driven Approach to Agile Software Development in the Platform Economy’. Prof. dr. Frederik Gailly and Prof. dr. Geert Poels, both of UGent Business Informatics, were his supervisors.

Prof. dr. Koen Schoors was Chair of the Examination Committee, which included, apart from the supervisors, Dr. Michal Hron and Prof. dr. Michaël Verdonck of Ghent University, Prof. dr. Yves Wautelet of KU Leuven, and Prof. dr. Tiago Prince Sales and Prof. dr. Renata Guizzardi of the University of Twente.

The UGent Business Informatics research group congratulates Dr. Derave for this outstanding achievement and thanks him for seven years of exceptional engagement as a teaching assistant.

Dr. Derave started on 1 July 2025 as a post-doctoral researcher within UGent Business Informatics.