IAIA awards REC's Dusik with top honour

In March the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) named Jiri Dusik, the REC's senior advisor for strategic environmental assessment (SEA), as the recipient of the '2007 Individual Award for Contribution to Impact Assessment.' Dusik was singled out for, among other achievements, his outstanding contribution to SEA capacity development in Eastern Europe and South Asia. He has also promoted more than 30 SEA pilot projects and has contributed to the development of various SEA guidelines and training manuals, according Jean-Roger Mercier, this year's chair of the IAIA Awards Committee.

"Jiri, your efforts in promoting environmental impact assessment and SEA in Central and Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union countries, and now also in Vietnam and China are a testimony to your dedicated commitment to IAIA's vision and mission," Mercier wrote to Dusik in a congratulatory letter. "We appreciate your humility and good humour and your ability to liven up IAIA conferences at both an intellectual and personal level."

Dusik graduated from the Czech Technical University in 1993 with a degree in Civil Engineering. He joined the REC in 1996 to act as secretary of the Sofia EIA Initiative, a programme that significantly raised interest in the development of SEA systems in the CEE region and contributed to initiating negotiations of the UNECE SEA Protocol. Long active in the protocol process, Dusik is presently involved in a longer-term SEA capacity development programme in China's Yunnan Provinces.

The IAIA is an organisation of environmental decision makers comprising some 2,500 members from more than 120 nations worldwide.