Prof. András Székács is Deputy Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) in Gödöllő, Hungary. He is also Honorary Professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) at Budapest, Hungary, where he had obtained his masters (1984, chemical engineer) and doctoral (PhD) (1991) degrees before. He started his research career at the Plant Protection Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1984-2011), and became Director-General of the Central Research Institute of Environmental and Food Science and served as a research coordinator in its legal successors (since 2012). Currently he teaches environmental chemistry, environmental impacts of agricultural technologies, and pesticide chemistry and biochemistry. Currently he is a member of the Governing Body of the OECD Co-operative Research Programme for Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems (Paris, France), and of the Committee for Assessment of Genetic Technologies in Hungary. He served as a member and Vice Chair of the Management Board of the European Food Safety Authority (2014-2022).

Prof. András Székács’ research focuses on environmental risks of agricultural technologies, environmental analysis and ecotoxicology of xenobiotics of agricultural origin, environmental hazards of agricultural biotechnology applications, as well as water quality assessment and monitoring. His work contributes to questions of how organic microcontaminants and transgenic peptides as deliberately released environmental contaminants can or cannot be applied as related to sustainability of agricultural technologies and to approaches towards circular economy.

Theoretical aspects of his work include debates how these technologies comply or fail to comply with the principles of integrated pest management, and questions in environmental ethics. His broader area of research are chemical, genetic and biological environmental and food safety aspects of agricultural technologies, including organic microcontaminants in the food chain (pesticides, mycotoxins, anthropogenic and technological contaminants); instrumental and bioanalytical methods for measuring bioactive ingredients in environmental and food analysis; analytical methods for examination of origin and composition; ecotoxicological evaluation of agricultural products and additives. Prof. András Székács pioneered the development of immunoanalytical methods (immunoassays, immunosensors) for pesticide residues, other organic microcontaminants and native/transgenic proteins. In this field, he has been active since 1986.

He authored and co-authored 173 research articles in high-impact scientific journals, and contributed to 51 books or book chapters as author or editor. His Hirsch index currently is 30.

He is a member in several Scientific Committees of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, currently is Chairman of the Environmental Chemistry Working Group. In addition, he is a member of the Hungarian Society of Ecotoxicology.

Prof. András Székács has collaborated with research groups across Europe and worldwide. He worked as a Fulbright Scholar and a subsequent Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of California at Davis (USA) (1986-1990), and as a Visiting Scholar at several research institutions in Europe, including the Institute of Water Chemistry of the University of Technology Munich (Germany), the Milano University and the Mario Negri Research Institute in Milan (Italy), the University of Technology Wien and IFA-Tulln (Austria), Sheffield Hallam University (UK) and the Palladin Institute of Biochemistry in Kiev (Ukraine). He has been coordinator or principal investigator of numerous international and domestic research projects. Main international projects include NATO SPS project “Biotox: Development of optical bio-sensors for detection of bio-toxins” (NATO SPS NUKR.SFPP 984637 ,2015-2018), EU FP7 project “SPICED: Securing the spices and herbs commodity chains in Europe against deliberate, accidental, or natural biological and chemical contamination” (FP7 EU-FP7-SEC-2012-1-312631, 2012-2016), Horizon2020 project “ NETPOULSAFE: Networking European poultry actors for enhancing the compliance of biosecurity measures for a sustainable production (H2020-RUR-2020-1 101000728, 2020-2023), as well as Erasmus+ projects”ProtectLife: Prevention of water contamination from point sources with plant protection products by improving extension specialists’ vocational competences” (Erasmus+ 2017-1-TR01-KA202-045641, 2018-2021), “TOPPLANT: Trainers for Plant Protection is Organic Farming” (Erasmus+ 2020-1-AT01-KA202-078107, 2020-2022), and “Hort4EUGreen: Enhancing practical skills of horticulture specialists to better address the demands of the European Green Deal” (Erasmus+ KA203-18DCB172-EN, 2020-2023). Main domestic projects include NKTH project “MONTABIO: Complex monitoring system for analytical detection and biological evaluation of soil micropollutants for a sustainable environment” (NKTH OM-00029/2008, 2008-2011),OTKA project “Mechanism-related teratogenic, hormone modulant and other toxicological effects of veterinary and agricultural surfactants” (OTKA K109865, 2014-2018), and NVKP project “Aquafluosense: Development of a modular, direct and immunofluorimetry as well as plasma spectroscopy based detector and instrument family for in situ, complex water quality monitoring, and application studies” (NVKP_16-1-2016-0049, 2017-2021).

He is a member of the Editorial Board of BioRisk (since 2009), Section Editor of journal Toxins (since 2019), and has served as Guest Editor for Toxicology Reports, Water, Toxics, Frontiers journals, and Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering. Among periodicals published in Hungary, he is Editor (Editor-in-Chief during 1998-2008) of Biokémia (Journal of the Hungarian Biochemical Society, since 1996), Editor (Editor-in-Chief during 1998-2008) of Biokontroll (since 2010), and Editor of Ökotoxikológia (Journal of the Hungarian Society of Ecotoxicology, since 2019).