Dr. Jan Cools is Research Manager of the “Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development” at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is primarily focusing on inter-disciplinary projects related to integrated environmental management and climate change adaptation for a wide range of topics, of which the most important are river basin management, coastal zone management, urban air quality and biodiversity. His projects typically integrate natural/engineering sciences with governance and social/economic sciences. Jan holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences (University of Geneva, Switzerland) (on the use of scientific data for River Basin Management), and 2 MSc degrees from KULeuven (Leuven, Belgium): Water Resources Engineering and Anthropology. Former affiliations are Milieu Ltd (European policy consultancy), Antea Group (engineering consultancy) and the Free University of Brussels (Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering).

Dr. Jan Cools has more than 15 years of experience in the coordination and technical implementation of projects for a number of international clients, including the European Commission (DG Environment, DG Climate Action, DG Research, DG Agri), the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the United Nations (UNDP, UNEP and UNISDR). He has been the coordinator of EU research projects WETwin, AFROMAISON, FREEMAN, FLAFOM and was involved as work package leader in Twin2Go, EnviroGrids and Soilcare. He has extensive expertise in the development and evaluation of policy and work programmes on river basin management on water quantity (flood and drought risk management ) and water quality (pollution, water supply and sanitation) in the EU (all countries) and non-EU countries such as Uganda, Mali, Egypt, Jordan, Ecuador, Ethiopia and South Africa.