Prof. Dr. Janos Bogardi

United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security
Germany

Short biography

Introduction
Janos Bogardi has been the Director of the United Nations University - Institute for Envi-ronment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) since 2003. Simultaneously he is also Vice-Rector a.i. of the Vice Rectorate in Europe since May 2007.
Prof. Bogardi has Hungarian roots, and is fluent in five European languages: English, German, French, Dutch and Hungarian, being his mother tongue.

Career Path
He started his professional career as Assistant Professor at the Institute for Water Re-sources Management of the Technical University of Budapest. Shortly after having relo-cated to Germany, he became part of the scientific staff in the Federal Institute for Hydrau-lic Engineering in Karlsruhe, and the University of Karlsruhe, respectively. Between 1971-1973 and 1983-1985 he worked as a consulting engineer amongst others in Africa. He was then seconded by the German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ) to the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, Thailand, between 1985 and 1988.
For the next almost seven years he worked as professor for Hydraulics, and quantitative Water Resource Management Hydrology at the Agricultural University of Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Janos Bogardi started his UN career in 1995 with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, France, as a Senior Programme Specialist  and soon became the Chief of the Section on Sustainable Water Resources and Man-agement.

Chairmanship
Between October 2006 and October 2007, Prof Bogardi acted as Chair of the Head of Agencies of all Bonn-based UN Organisations.

Memberships
He is a member of “Internationales Bonn” and a member of the board of the German Committee for Disaster Prevention (DKKV).
He is also member of IAHR (International Association of Hydrologic Engineering and Re-search) and IAHS (International Association of Scientific Hydrology).

Academic Background
He graduated in Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary, with special emphasis on water resources and agricultural water resources development in 1969. After obtaining a post graduate Diploma on Hydrology from the University of Padua, Italy, he earned his PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.

Honours
He was honoured to receive the title of ‘Doctor Honoris Causa’ from the Agricultural Uni-versity of Warsaw, Poland, and the Technical University of Budapest.
In addition, in May 2008, on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the UNESCO Chair, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Nizhny Novgorod State University of Archi-tecture and Civil Engineering (NNSUACE).
In June 2008, he was honoured by the International Cannes Water Prize “Grand Prix des Lumières de l’Eau de Cannes”.

Publications
He has authored, co-authored, and edited more than 170 publications.