Holger Gerdes

Holger Gerdes is a Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute and coordinator of the Institute's bioeconomy activities. He evaluates and applies participatory tools for effective natural resource management in the emerging bioeconomy. Drawing on his background in environmental and resource economics, he also works on the economic valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services and on the assessment of the socio-economic impacts of environmental change. He is fluent in German and English and has a good knowledge of French and Dutch.

Currently, Holger Gerdes coordinates the project Concepts, Tools and Applications for Community-driven Bioeconomy Development in European Rural Areas (SCALE-UP). Before, he coordinated the projects Bio-based Strategies and Roadmaps for Enhanced Rural and Regional Development in the EU (BE-Rural) and Promoting Stakeholder Engagement and Public Awareness for a Participative Governance of the European Bioeconomy (BioSTEP). He is also responsible for Ecologic Institute's contribution to the long-term research project Sustainable Subsoil Management as Part of the Bioeconomy (Soil³).

In addition to his involvement in national and European research projects, Holger Gerdes has worked on service and framework contracts for a variety of public authorities, including the European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, the European Environment Agency (EEA), the EU's Committee of the Regions (CoR), and Germany's Federal Environment Agency (UBA).

Holger Gerdes has also supported the European Research Executive Agency (REA) and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) in the evaluation of project proposals, and the University of Hohenheim (Germany) in the periodic evaluation of four environment-related M.Sc. courses. Since 2010, Holger Gerdes has been supporting the Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center (Switzerland) in organizing a PhD course on evidence-based policy-making by developing student assignments on topics related to the valuation of natural capital.