Hans Bruyninckx
Hans Emiel Aloysius Bruyninckx (; born March 20, 1964) is a Belgian political scientist and international relations scholar specialized in international environmental governance and European environmental politics. He has headed the European Environment Agency since 2013. While in this position, he is on leave from his posts as Professor of International Relations and Global Environmental Governance, Institute for International and European Policy; and Director, Research Institute for Work and Society, both at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven). Education. Bruyninckx studied political science focused on international relations at Antwerp University and KU Leuven. He obtained an additional degree in  development studies at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) and, subsequently, earned his PhD degree in 1996 at Colorado State University on the topic of international environmental politics. Career. Bruyninckx taught at several other universities such as Colorado State University, Canisius College, and Wageningen University. Bruyninckx´ academic expertise lies in international environmental policy, studying the effects of globalization on the global governance of environmental issues and sustainable development. He studied global production and consumption systems, and environmental justice. He has been teaching at the university on the topic of global environmental politics, and global environmental governance in relation to the  European Union. As of 2010, besides his main appointments at the university, he has been a senior member of the interdisciplinary "Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies", promoter-coordinator of the Flemish Support Point on Transitions for Sustainable Development (TRADO), and president of the Flemish umbrella environmental organisation . In June 2013, Bruyninckx became Executive Director of the European Environment Agency , succeeding Jacqueline McGlade. After the EEA published a report in 2016 he was quoted saying "that there was now not a snowball’s chance in hell of limiting global warming to 2C without the full involvement of the US." Hans