Roderik Smits is Assistant Professor in Media and Creative Industries in the Department of Media & Communication. He acts as Academic Coordinator of the Research Master Sociology of Culture, Media and the Arts.

With over a decade of teaching and research experience at universities in the UK, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, he has developed strong expertise in the film and television industries. His work focuses on key industry processes, including policy, production, distribution, exhibition, and streaming.

Roderik is co-editor of European Cinema in the Streaming Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and author of Gatekeeping in the Evolving Business of Independent Film Distribution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). His work has also been published in Media Industries, Poetics, Studies in European Cinema, Cultural Trends, NECSUS, Arts and the Market, Flow Journal, The Velvet Light Trap and Journal of British Cinema and Television.

Roderik holds a PhD from the University of York (UK) and has worked on several large-scale, collaborative research projects in Europe. These include Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens (MeCETES), funded by HERA (2013-2017); Beyond the Multiplex, funded by AHRC (2017-2021); and Screen Agencies as Cultural Intermediaries, funded by AHRC (2018-2020).

Subsequently, he was awarded postdoctoral fellowships to undertake his research project Online Platforms and Film Circulation (2020-2024). These include the Postdoc Network Brandenburg fellowship at Film University Babelsberg (Potsdam, Germany) and the Marie-Curie fellowship at University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain).

Roderik is keen to make an impact within and beyond the academy. He has worked together with industry organisations such as Creative Europe, Europa Distribution and Thessaloniki International Film Festival.