European Bioeconomy Panel Profiles of panel members Research and Innovation EUROPEAN COMMISSION Directorate-General for Research and Innovation Directorate E — Biotechnologies, Agriculture, Food Unit E.1 — Horizontal Aspects and Coordination E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] European Commission B-1049 Brussels EUROPEAN COMMISSION European Bioeconomy Panel Profiles of panel members 2013 Directorate General for Research and Innovation Biotechnologies, Agriculture, Food EUROPE DIRECT is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union Freephone number (*): 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (*) Certain mobile telephone operators do not allow access to 00 800 numbers or these calls may be billed LEGAL NOTICE Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. © European Union, 2013 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. Cover images: from top left to bottom right): © Nejron Photo, 8761786; © Strezhnev Pavel, 15452845; © djemphoto, 38631785; © Thibault Renard, 8316367; © Vlastimil Sstak, 35771102; © Richard Caney, 26334524; © Elenathewise, 2721678; © Jim Barton, 16030001; © monticellllo, 34077343; © Martin Wilkinson, 11918689; © Roman Antoschuk, 13326908, 2012. Source: Fotolia.com. Introduction The European Bioeconomy Panel aims to support interactions among different policy areas, sectors and stakeholders in the bioeconomy. It is an important element of the European Commission's strategy on the bioeconomy, announced in February 2012. The panel has 30 members, who were carefully selected following an open call for candidates. They have a variety of professional backgrounds, and represent the interests of different stakeholder groups: producers, enterprises, and industry; the scientific and research community; public administrations; and civil society. Panel members have been appointed to serve an initial two year period from 2013 – 2015. The European Commission defines the bioeconomy as: "the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, bio- based products and bioenergy". It includes agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and pulp and paper production, as well as parts of chemical, biotechnological and energy industries. Dominique Barjolle Musard Deputy Director, Research Institute of Organic Farming (FiBL), Switzerland, and Lecturer/Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Dominique Barjolle Musard holds a PhD in agricultural economics (AgroParisTech), and a post-graduate certificate in Economics (University of Montpellier 1). Her area of expertise is the economics of quality and especially how voluntary food sustainability standards act to adjust supply to demand in the "quality" dimension and in particular its "sustainability" component. She began her career as a researcher in Agricultural Economics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, where she developed research on food marketing and consumers, especially in product quality and governance of agrifood chains. She has initiated and participated in several research programs on innovation in agriculture, and the interaction between research and adoption of innovations. She has participated in 10 European projects, one of them as a coordinator (FOCUS BALKANS). She led for 8 years the Swiss Center of agricultural extension and rural development (AGRIDEA), which is active in the dissemination of knowledge and is an actor in participatory research in agriculture and rural development. As French and Swiss citizen, she has experience in many developing countries (Balkans, North and sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia). She is currently Deputy Director at the Institute of Organic Agriculture Research (Switzerland) and lecturer at the ETH, and works closely with several UN agencies (FAO, UNIDO, WIPO). FiBL is a private foundation dedicated to the pursuit of excellence on sustainability in agriculture and food. FiBL is active in Switzerland, Europe and worldwide. A balance between various funding sources guarantees its independence. A board of independent experts and stakeholders supports its strategic planning and operational management. 4 Catia Bastioli CEO, Novamont Born in in Foligno (Italy) in 1957, Catia Bastioli graduated in Pure Chemistry at the University of Perugia and attended the school of Business Administration (“Alti Potenziali Montedison”) at the Bocconi University in Milan. Project Leader from 1984 to 1988 at the Guido Donegani Institute for the Montedison Strategic Composite Materials Project, and Project Manager for Biodegradable Materials from Renewable Sources Project at the Ferruzzi Research and Technology Center, Catia Bastioli entered Novamont in 1991 as R&D Director, becoming Technical Director in 1993, and then Managing Director in 1996. Today she is Chief Executive Officer of Novamont. Catia Bastioli has been member of EU working groups, such as the Committee for “Renewable Raw Materials” of the Directorate General Industry and the “European Climate Change Program” (ECCP), the Environment Advisory Group of the Directorate General Research. More recently she has closely followed and significantly contributed to the development of the biobased industries PPP from its outset, in February 2012, and since February 2013 she is also member of the High Level Group on Key Enabling Technologies of the EU. Catia Bastioli is member of the Executive Committee of PlasticsEurope Italia and President of the KyotoClub Association. She has been member of numerous Advisory Boards set up by Research Institutes and University spin- offs, as well as member of the Strategic Advisory Commission for the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and is member of the “Stati Generali della Green Economy”, a committee recently launched by the Italian Ministry of the Environment to spur sustainable growth in Italy. Since May 2013 Catia Bastioli is Board Member of Fondazione Cariplo. Author of many papers and contributions on the subjects of renewable raw materials, biorefineries, intellectual property, plastics and bioplastics in general, Catia Bastioli is the inventor of more than 80 patents and patent applications in the sectors of synthetic and natural polymers and related building blocks. Catia Bastioli is the editor of the “Handbook of Biodegradable Polymers”, published by Rapra Technology Limited in 2005. Catia Bastioli has won numerous international awards for her discoveries in the field of starch-based biodegradable materials; most notably, in 2007 she was nominated for the “European Inventor of the Year 2007” for her patents filed in the years 1992-2001. In 2008 the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural and Physical Sciences of the University of Genoa granted her an /Honoris Causa/ degree in Industrial Chemistry. 5 Stanislaw Bielecki Professor, Institute of Technical Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Łódź University of Technology, Poland Professor Stanislaw Bielecki is a full professor at the Institute of Technical Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Łódź University of Technology. His main areas of research interest are: industrial biotechnology, applied biocatalysis, molecular engineering of enzymes and biopolymers, especially bacterial bionanocellulose biosynthesis and its application in medicine and industry. His scientific achievements consist of over 200 research papers, more than 40 patents and patent applications. Professor Bielecki has lectured extensively abroad and has been invited as a visiting professor to universities in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, France, the USA and China. Professor Bielecki created the Lodz school of industrial biotechnology, which has grown strong and has been recognized both in Poland and Europe. Professor Bielecki participates in and chairs many important scientific forums, such as the Biotechnology Committee at the Presidium of Polish Academy of Sciences (Chairman), the Commission of Biotechnology at the branch of PAS in Lodz (Chairman), Advisory Board in the Second Priority of the EU FP7 "Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Biotechnology" of the European Commission, the Councils of Science: PAS Centre for Medical Biology and Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies (member). At present he holds the positions of Rector of the Łódz University of Technology and Vice-President of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland. 6 Christine Bunthof Senior Policy Officer and Contact Point for Joint Programming and ERA-Net Actions, Wageningen UR, Netherlands Christine Bunthof (1971) has a degree in Molecular Sciences from Wageningen University, holds a PhD in food microbiology and was a post-doc fellow at the DLO institute Plant Research International. Switching to research policy and programme management, she worked for six years for the Dutch research council NWO managing European collaboration in the area of plant genomics (ERA-NET Plant Genomics). In March 2010 she joined the corporate staff of Wageningen UR, first tasked as European subsidy advisor. Since 2011 Dr Bunthof is senior policy officer and Wageningen UR contact point for Joint Programming and ERA-Net Actions. Currently, she leads the FP7 funded platform of bio-economy relevant ERA- NETs (PLATFORM), is in charge of the mapping and foresight activities for strategic collaboration within the Joint Programming Initiative on Food Security, Agriculture, and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI), and partner in a EU- India