Marcel Dautzenberg coordinates operations within ITEM

ITEM welcomed Marcel Dautzenberg on 1 April 2022 as the new Operations Coordinator for the ITEM Team. Previously he worked for the Municipality of Maastricht with projects such as the Expat Centre Maastricht Region, the Cross-Border Information Point Maastricht and more recently at the Knowledge Centre for International Staff at Maastricht University.

Marcel Dautzenberg grew up in Vaals, a small Dutch town that is known for its position at the German and Belgian border, experiencing the cross-border region up close. With close ties with German relatives and a frontier working father he always had a clear understanding of both the hurdles and the joys of being a cross-border citizen. Professionally, Marcel Dautzenberg rolled into civil service positions, where he assisted international citizens with civil affairs at the service desk, coordinated operations in several areas at civil service departments and eventually ended up at the Expat Centre Maastricht Region and the Cross-Border Information Point at the Municipality of Maastricht.

Being able to welcome and assist international / cross-border citizens in their daily lives, rather than simple civil operations was a welcome opportunity for Marcel Dautzenberg to go the extra mile. “Because simply handing out forms and documents to international citizens meant that they still had a lot of unanswered questions like: which school should I send my kids to? Where should I go to do my taxes? How do I adjust to living in a new country?”. He was pleased to see more and more initiatives in the region, that promote cross-border working and living, including ITEM, which he got to know as a knowledgeable and devoted research institute.

After several decades in civil service environment, he transitioned into Maastricht University, at first via the Knowledge Centre for International Staff and now at the interdisciplinary research institute ITEM. Marcel Dautzenberg hopes to complement and strengthen ITEM’s long term objectives, i.e. with existing cooperations between initiatives, but also paying necessary attention to individuals in the team.