Michael J. Scoullos (Prof. Emeritus, University of Athens) is an Environmental/Water Chemist (MSc, DSc, University of Athens) and Oceanographer (PhD University of Liverpool), founder of the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Oceanography at the University of Athens. He is currently the Director of the UNESCO Chair and Network on Sustainable Development Management and Education in the Mediterranean of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Team Leader (2009-2019) of the EU-Funded Horizon 2020 CB/MEP, SWIM-Horizon 2020, regional projects dedicated largely to sustainable water resources management in eight south Mediterranean countries. Since 2019, he is the Team Leader of its follow-up project Water and Environment Support (WES) in the ENI Neighbourhood South region. He has worked extensively on different aspects of fresh and marine water. In his fifty-year career, he has combined advanced scientific research and academic teaching with active participation in drafting and piloting environmental and water-related policies, while stimulating and coordinating teamwork of various stakeholders, under international, regional and national organizations and schemes.
From 1992-2018 he represented, as an expert, the European Parliament on the Management Board and the Executive Bureau of the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the lead knowledge hub of the EU on environmental and water issues. As Chairman (2005 – today) of the Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean (GWP-Med) he has strategically led and facilitated a series of regional water cooperation mechanisms, processes and projects. He is the founder and Chairman (1991 – today) of the Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development (MIO-ECSDE), which is the major environmental NGO platform of the Mediterranean region. He is also the Secretary General of the Circle of Mediterranean Parliamentarians for Sustainable Development (COMPSUD) that steadily works on Sustainable Development issues.
He has published a large number of research articles, books and policy papers on environmental chemistry, oceanography, environmental and sustainable development management, education for environment and sustainable development as well as on hydrodiplomacy. He has organized and chaired a very large number of International Conferences, many of which of major political significance and has received numerous international distinctions among which the Gold Medal of the City of Paris (Honorary Citizen), the National Order of Cedar of Lebanon, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Simon Bolivar Medal of UNESCO and the “Drakos” Environmental Award of the Academy of Athens.