Q&A with Irina Patrahau, Benjamin Sprecher and Fons Janssen

The program begins with a word of welcome from Cecilia Thorfinn, Acting Head of the European Commission Representation in the Netherlands.

After the film, moderator Servaz van Berkum will discuss critical raw materials with experts Irina Patrahau of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, Benjamin Sprecher of Delft University of Technology and Fons Janssen of Team Europa. They will delve deeper into the questions: how can Europe obtain critical raw materials and become less dependent on other countries in this regard? And how do economic interests relate to sustainability and international responsibility?

Irina Patrahau is a Strategic Analyst and Chair of the Energy Security and Critical Minerals initiatives within the broader Geoeconomics research pillar at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. Irina’s work is focused on the impact of geopolitical tensions and strategic competition on the security and resilience of energy and raw materials supply chains in the EU. 

Benjamin Sprecher is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering with main research interests in sustainable design, quantification of environmental impacts, and industrial ecology. His current work explores how to quantification of environmental impacts can inform sustainable design, and how decisions at the product design level relate to system level concepts such as circular economy. His PhD and postdoc were forcussed on critical raw materials and supply chain resilience, and he remains working on these topics as well.

Fons Janssen has an academic background in biotechnology and process engineering. He currently works as a strategic policy officer at the Municipality of Roerdalen. Fons is a guest speaker at Team Europa: a group of volunteer experts on European themes from the European Commission representation in the Netherlands.