PRRI Secretariat

The Executive Secretary of the PRRI is Dr. Lucia de Souza, a Brazilian national who obtained her Ph.D in plant biochemistry at the Friedriech Miescher Institut in Switzerland. She gained experience in biotechnology product launch and consumer perception research in Mexico and in Brazil. Lúcia de Souza has extensive experience in teaching and has been actively involved in biosafety since 1994. From 2005 to 2015 she was the vice-president of the Brazilian National Biosafety Association(ANBio), which is a group of academic professionals active in capacity building and in communication in the field of Biosafety and its interfaces with society, regulators and other stakeholders. Since 2015 she is affiliated with ISAAA. Lucia de Souza also directs the Switzerland based Cutting Edge Solutions, which offers consulting in biosafety and biotechnology. Lúcia de Souza has been actively involved in PRRI´s activities since 2005.

PRRI is an organisation by public researchers for researchers. Over the years PRRI members frequently volunteered to help on an ad-hoc basis the respective Executive Secretaries with secretarial support, such as updating literature on the website, acting as local organisers for meetings in their countries, selecting suitable accommodation during international meetings, etc.

In addition, Piet van der Meer provides technical support to PRRI and the PRRI Secretariat . Piet van der Meer is trained as a biologist and a lawyer, and from 1989 to 2000 he was in charge of biosafety regulation in the Netherlands during which he was actively involved in many international and EU fora. From 1999 to 2002, he managed the project “Implementation of National Biosafety Frameworks of the pre-accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe”, and from 2002 to 2004 he served as the programme manager of the UNEP-GEF projects on Implementation of National Biosafety Frameworks. Since 2004, Piet van der Meer works as an independent consultant,  primarily providing support on biotechnology and biosafety to international organisations and governmental institutes. In addition, he teaches since 2006 biotechnology regulation at the University of Ghent (at the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Law), and since 2014 he also teaches this topic at the Free University of Brussels.