Unternavigation

Paul Steffen, Deputy Director

Paul Steffen is Deputy Director of the Federal Department of the Environment FOEN. He heads the directorate with the divisions of the Hazard Prevention, Forest, Noise and Non-ionising Radiation (NIR), and Air Pollution Control and Chemicals divisions.

Paul Steffen, Vizedirektor BAFU — Paul Steffen, Deputy Director of the FOEN

Curriculum Vitae

Paul Steffen (1962) grew up in Bellikon (canton of Aargau). He studied agronomy at the ETH Zurich and was awarded a doctorate in 1992. Within the scope of an extra-occupational education programme at the University of St Gallen (HSG), he obtained an Executive MBA degree in 2018.

From 1992 to 2001 he worked at the Federal Office for Agriculture FOAG, initially as Head of the Research Unit and from 1994 as Assistant Director of the Research, Education and Consultancy Directorate. In 1999 he completed specialised further training at Colorado State University. In October 2000, the Federal Council appointed him Director of the then Swiss Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture (FAL) in Zürich-Reckenholz. He remained there until 2005 and was also Director of the FAL site in Tänikon (Thurgau) from 2006 to 2013. The merger of the FAL sites led to the establishment of Agroscope, the Swiss centre of excellence for agricultural research, of which Paul Steffen was Director from 2014 to 2017.

Paul Steffen has been Vice Director of the Federal Department for the Environment FOEN since 2017 and Deputy Director since 2022. He heads the directorate with the divisions of the Hazard Prevention, Forest, Noise and Non-ionising Radiation (NIR), and Air Pollution Control and Chemicals divisions.