Ruud Vlek (born 1949 The Hague) studied political and social sciences at the Free University and the University of Amsterdam. He has been working as a social scientist at the Universities of Leiden, Amsterdam and Nijmegen 1981-1998. In 1997 he published a Ph.D.-study on the interest representation and interest struggles of social security recipients in Dutch politics. Nowadays he is a social policy researcher at the Dutch Workers Insurance Authority (UWV).