Javier Benayas
Javier Benayas is a Professor of Ecology at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Throughout his professional career, he has had direct involvement in university environmental management. From 1995 to 2003, he was a Delegate to the Rector of Environment. From 2003 to 2009, he was Vice-Rector of Campus and Environmental Quality within the government team of Rector Ángel Gabilondo. In 2003, he was promoted the creation of the working group on Environment and Sustainability of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE), current Sectorial Sustainability Commission, of which he has been its executive secretary from 2008 to 2016. He also designed and launched (1996) the ECOCAMPUS program of environmental management of the UAM, whose trajectory has been recognized with several awards: Habitat Program (UNESCO),
From his experience in managing university campuses, he directed different projects related to designing sustainable development strategies for urban areas. One of them focused on defining indicators and evaluating the commitments of 35 Spanish universities with sustainability, which was later applied to 65 Latin American universities. The project has been recognized by the United Nations Environment Program and presented in various international forums.
From 2000 to 2015, he was the coordinator of the interuniversity doctoral program in "Environmental Education" taught by 9 Spanish universities. He is currently co-director of the "Master in Management of Protected Natural Areas" led by the Fernando González Bernáldez Foundation and the Autonomous, Complutense, and Alcalá de Madrid Universities since 2000.
He is a member of the research team of the Socioecosystems Laboratory and director of the research team "Education and Environmental Participation" of the Department of Ecology of the UAM. He is also a member of the Interuniversity Institute "Advanced Research on Science and University Evaluation" (INAECU) (UAM-UC3M).
Since 2015 he was the First Deputy Mayor and Councilor for Urban Planning and Sustainability of the Soto del Real (Madrid) city council. Since 2016 he has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Spanish Sustainable Development Network that prepares annual reports on the degree of compliance with the SDGs by the different countries or every two years the evaluation of the involvement of the 100 Spanish cities in the 2030 agenda.