Karl Vrancken (°1969), is research manager sustainable materials management at VITO. He has a part-time assignment as professor at the University of Antwerp (Dept. Bio-engineering), where he teaches sustainable resources management. After an education as a Doctor in Chemistry (University of Antwerp, 1995), he worked as a training and development manager in the environmental engineering industry. He has broad experience as a researcher and project manager in projects on waste management and treatment, secondary raw materials, best available techniques (BAT) and integrated pollution prevention and control. He worked as a Detached National Expert with the European IPPC Bureau in Seville (Spain), where he was the author of the BREF (BAT Reference Document) for the Foundries sector. Karl has been heading multidisciplinary research teams on sustainability assessment and transition, first as a manager, later as research coordinator. He is a working group member in the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials (DG ENT) and consortium chairman of the EEA European Topic Centre on Waste and Materials for a Green. In the first half of 2015 he was seconded to start up the knowledge and innovation community (KIC) EIT Raw Materials, as interim Chief Operations Officer (iCOO). At present, Karl is chairman of the Western Co-location Centre of EIT RawMaterials.