Biomass in the Bioeconomy

Jean-Luc Wertz holds degrees in chemical, civil engineering and economic science from the Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and a PhD from the same university in applied science, specializing in polymer chemistry. He has had various international positions in R&D, including Spontex, where he was the worldwide Director of R&D. He holds several patents related to multiple products. In his last job before his retirement in 2016, he was a project manager in biomass valorization at ValBiom and worked for more than eight years on biobased products and biorefineries. He also wrote five books: Cellulose Science and Technology in 2010, Lignocellulosic Biorefineries in 2013, Hemicelluloses and Lignin in Biorefineries in 2018, Starch in the Bioeconomy in 2020 and Chitin and chitosans in the Bioeconomy.

Philippe Mengal has been the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) since October 2015. BBI JU is a public-private partnership between the European Commission and the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC). He trained as an engineer in Chemistry and Bio-industry at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech University and in Strategic Innovation Management at INSEAD - Fontainebleau. In his 25 years of professional experience before joining BBI JU, he held strategic managerial positions in Bio-Economy businesses in France & Belgium as CEO of three companies & Global R&D Director of a multinational company. He is a Scientific Advisor for VIVES Inter-University Fund, an early stage and multi-sectorial Fund and scientific advisory board member of the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology. In the 90' he has given courses in a Master program in Chemical Engineering. He published 20 posters & scientific papers and applied for nine patents.

Serge Perez holds a Doctorate es Sciences from the University of Grenoble, France. He had international exposure throughout several academic and industry positions in research laboratories in the U.S.A., Canada, and France (Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolecules Vegetales, CNRS, Grenoble, as the chairperson and as Director of Research at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility). His research interests span the whole area of structural glycoscience, emphasizing polysaccharides, glycoconjugates, and protein-carbohydrate interactions. He has a strong interest in the economy of glycoscience, and e-learning, for which he created the www.glycopedia.eu. He is actively involved in scientific societies, as President and past president of the European Carbohydrate Organisation. He is the author of more than 300 research publications, among which several are the subject of a large number of citations and references.