Bram Vandeninden

Hi, I'm Bram, a scientist and Volt member working to infuse science into politics and create a more sustainable, prosperous, democratic, healthy and equitable Europe.

I grew up in a very remote rural area for 18 years, and since then have lived in smaller and middle-sized cities like Leuven, Ghent, and soon Mechelen. Having lived in a rural and urban environment for around 2/3th and 1/3th of my life so far respectively has given me a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing our different communities, which are often similar and sometimes different.

My driving ambition is to witness and trigger a profound infusion of science into politics, leveraging my background as a scientist with extensive involvement in European projects addressing air pollution, mobility, spatial planning and toxic chemicals. Currently, one of the core parts of my scientific research is the relation between human health and transport & spatial planning policies.

At Volt, I coordinate the policy processes, ensuring democratic participation and emphasising evidence-based solution-oriented approaches. For the solutions of tomorrow, we need more powerful EU coordination to tackle global issues such as climate change and migration. In addition, I believe that we can learn a lot from European good practices, such as the bicycle infrastructure in Utrecht and the affordable housing in Vienna.

I don't have a car and travel by bike and train. I travel a lot within Europe to visit places, attend scientific conferences and meet fellow Europeans, most of the time by train. Accelerate long-term Infrastructure investments, Building trams in cities, cross border public rail transport and a truly European high speed rail networks to give people more freedom and tackle climate change is something else we need to work on.