Albert (Bert) Steenge was born in the Wieringermeer, The Netherlands, in the Northern part of the Province of North-Holland. He went to elementary school in Anna Paulowna and to secondary school (grammar school,‘Gymnasium B’) in the towns of Den Helder and Gronin­gen.

After graduating from secondary school, he spent one year in U.S., where he studied at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville on a scholarship provided by the Netherlands-America Institute. This was followed by:
1964-1970: Study of Quantitative Economics at the State University of Gro­ningen.
1970: Appointed Assistant Professor (later Associate Professor) at the University of Groningen, Sub-Faculty of Econometrics.

In 1985, when the Sub-Faculty became part of the Faculty of Economics, Albert transferred to the Department of Economics.

1980: Defense of my Ph.D. thesis (cum laude) entitled "Stability and Standard Commodities in Multisector Input-Out­put Models.” The thesis describes properties of dynamic model the industrial structure of a country or region in terms of a specific type of value standard with empirical applications to a number of countries.
1980-1986: Several periods of study and research abroad, including half a year of research at the Economic Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest during the period 1982-1983 (with Andrew Bródy).
1986: Appointed Full Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Public Administration and Public Policy, University of Twente, The Netherlands. After several reorganizations in the early 2000s, the Faculty became part of the School of Management and Governance.