CV of dr Hans Könemann
Hans Könemann was born in 1948 and grew up in a village in the east of the Netherlands
at the border of the river IJssel (Brummen). After finishing his secondary education
in the old Hanze town of Zutphen, he had to serve in the army, to his great dislike.
In 1969 he started studying chemistry at the Utrecht University. He specialized in
environmental sciences and toxicology. From 1975 he worked on a Ph.D. in environmental
toxicology. As a chemist among biologists and veterinarians, he chose to cover up
his weakness in pathology, by focusing on the quantitative aspects of toxicology.
His work consisted of two major elements
· the development of quantitative relationships between the structure of chemicals
and their toxicity (QSARs). This was an approach which was hardly applied in this
field and which proved quite successful.
· the systematic investigation of mixtures of more than 2 chemicals (up to 50)
The work resulted in his thesis (1979) and several publications and was honoured
with scientific awards, in 1981 (Secotox Research Award) and 1996 (International
QSAR Award).
He continued his career it the Ministry of Environment. He was in the midst of the
national and international development of chemicals legislation, which he enjoyed
very much. The national development of the chemicals legislation resulted in the
adoption of the Chemicals Act in 1985. He also got involved in the international
harmonisation of chemicals and became very active in OECD and EU activities. He chaired
many expert groups and from 1986 – 1989 the Joint Meeting on Chemicals of the OECD.
In this job he also started developing management experience, as section head.
In 1987 he changed to the Public Health Inspectorate, to set up the Netherlands’
monitoring system for Good Laboratory Practice (GLP). The two major activities were
a) to set up a credible inspection system for chemical safety laboratories (e.g.
industrial companies, contract research laboratories, b) to create a strong position
for the Netherlands in the international field. From 1989 – 1991 he chaired the OECD
expert group on GLP and up till now, the Netherlands is a leading country in this
field.
In 1991 Hans Könemann became head of the Laboratory of Toxicology at the National
Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM), first on an interim basis, to
restructure its activities. This included a reduction of its staff with 30%, which
was achieved without significant tension. In 1995 he became head of the Advisory
Centre of Toxicology. This Centre was extended gradually with new tasks and more
staff, to comprise ca. 100 risk assessors and its name was changed to Expert Centre
on Substances. The Centre was involved in assessing the safety of chemicals for man
and the environment in emissions, industrial applications, consumer products (food,
non-food), etc.
Major goals which were realized in this period were to professionalize the organization
and to make it more customer oriented. In this function he became increasingly aware
that his own contribution to the success of the organisation depended highly on the
satisfaction of his co-workers in their jobs.
International work was less prominent than in the period until 1991, but he participated
in Environmental Performance Reviews of the OECD (USA, 1996) and the EU (Bulgaria,
2005) and in pre-accession projects for new EU members (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania,
Slovakia, 2003 -2009).
At the end of 2005 he retired from the institute to continue as a private consultant.
