Profile
Martin Junginger (1976) is Full Professor Bio-Based Economy and chair of the Energy & Resources (E&R) group of the Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University. He has a background in chemistry and environmental science, and joined the staff of E&R in 2001 as PhD student, doing extensive research on the technological development and associated cost reductions of several renewable energy technologies, including onshore and offshore wind farms, biomass CHP plants in Sweden and biogas plants in Denmark. After obtaining his PhD in May 2005, he has mainly been working Sustainable International Bioenergy Trade. between 2013-2018, he was leader of IEA Bioenergy Task 40 on Sustainable International Bioenergy Trade (see www.bioenergytrade.org), in which topics like biomass sustainability assurance frameworks, bioenergy markets, logistic chains are investigated. He works amongst others on charting and projecting international trade in biomass and biofuels (with a special focus on wood pellets), and identifying limitations and opportunities for bioenergy trade. His expertise includes solid biomass logistic supply chains and GHG balances including forest carbon accounting. The topics mentioned above are also covered by past and ongoing projects, e.g. the EC-funded projects Biotrade2020+, BioSustain and the TKI-BBE funded project BioLogikN, which is also lead by Martin. Past EU- projects also include Pellets@las, EUBIONETIII, Re-shaping, DiaCore, and SolidStandards. Within the frame of these projects, Martin has organized several workshops (in the Netherlands and abroad) and given numerous presentations and lectures, amongst others in Brazil, Canada, the USA, Malaysia and more than 10 European countries. He also was contributing author to the bioenergy chapter of the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources (SRRES). He is editor of two books, on internaiotnal bioenergy trade and mobilisation of woody biomass from boreal and temperate forests.
Martins other major research interest covers technological development and cost reductions of (renewable) energy supply and energy demand technologies (which was also the main topic of his PhD thesis). Since 2005, he has acquired and worked several projects focusing on technological learning of energy demand technologies, 1st and 2nd generation biofuel production, and implementing experience curves in energy models. These efforts have recently culminated in the book “Technological learning in the Energy Sector: Lessons for Policy, Industry and Science” of which he is the first editor (together with Wilfried van Sark and Andre Faaij). For this book, more than 25 co-authors from amongst others Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the US made contributions, covering the technological development of a large variety of energy technologies. Martin has been supervising a large number of junior researchers over the past decade. To date (Novemebr 2020) this has led to six co-promotorships, nine promotorships and several ongoing promotor positions with expected finalization of the theses between 2020-2023. Furthermore, Martin is actively teaching the master-level course “Bio-Based Economy" with each about 30-40 students attending each year, and supervises several MSc students writing their thesis. He also coordinated the course 'Toolbox 1 - environmental assessment and management approaches' in the sustainable business and innovation (SBI) master, and strongly involved in energy science master. Finally, he is reviewer for a variety of scientific journals, industry and government bodies. He (co-) published more than 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and currently has an H-index of 40 (Scopus). In addition he has published more than 100 titles in reports and conference proceedings, (co-) organized a range of international workshops and conferences and is frequently invited to scientific, policy and industry conferences.
A few facts & figures as November 2020 2020
Relevant scientific and social positions (selection)