Arjan W. Kleij received his MSc (honors, 1996) and PhD (cum laude, 2000) from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. His PhD work was conducted in the group of Prof. Gerard van Koten and focused on the application of dendrimer- and hyperbranched polymer-supported homogeneous catalysts based on platinum group metals. Part of his PhD was carried out at the University of Freiburg in a collaborative project with Prof. Holger Frey. In 2000, he moved to industry expanding his research experience and first worked at Avantium as a project leader in its pharmaceutical division targeting biopolymer synthesis. At a later stage of his career (2005), he joined Hexion as a research scientist in the Epoxy & Phenolic Resins Division (EPRD). There, he focused on process optimization of chemical intermediates for coating and resin oriented materials. In 2002, he joined the group of Prof. Javier de Mendoza (UAM, Madrid, Spain) as a postdoctoral fellow, and continued postdoctoral work with Prof. Joost Reek at the HIMS institute at the University of Amsterdam (2003–2005, NL) in the field of supramolecular catalysis. In October 2006, he accepted a position as Group Leader at ICIQ in Tarragona (Spain).
His scientific career has so far been recognized with an NWO TALENT fellowship in 2000, he was elected ICREA junior fellow in 2006 and featured in an “Author Profile section” of Angewandte Chemie in 2018. In 2020, he received an Excellence Award of the Spanish Chemical Society (RSEQ), in 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and was an invited professor at Tokyo University in 2022. He received the 2023 European Sustainable Chemistry Award (ESCA), and the 2023 Scientific Excellence Award of the Catalan Chemical Society. In 2025 he was awarded the GEQO Rafael Usón Medal for the group´s contributions to organometallic chemistry. Since 2023, he has been the scientific coordinator of the HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN-JD joint doctoral network “D-Carbonize”.
His previous and ongoing scientific and managerial appointments include Organic Chemistry Frontiers (RSC) as an Associate Editor (2019–2025), the editorial board of Green Synthesis and Catalysis (Elsevier) since 2021, and since 2025 he is an associate editor at Green Chemistry (RSC). He is also an advisory/editorial board member for Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis (2025-), ChemSusChem (2020-), ChemCatChem (2021–2024) and ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2021). He also is/was a member of the editorial boards of ChemSusChem (2016–2019), the Journal of CO2 Utilization (2017-) and Industrial Chemistry & Materials (2022-). In 2016, he chaired the 1st Carbon Dioxide Conversion Catalysis (CDCC-1) conference in Portugal, and in 2019 the 4th EuCheMS Congress on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (EuGSC-4) in Tarragona. In 2025 he co-chaired the first bilateral symposium on organic chemistry between the Netherlands and Spain (SNOCS-1). Since 2024, he is part of the governing board of the Division of Green Chemistry (GEQV) of the Spanish chemical society (RSEQ), and as of 2026 a RSEQ delegate in the Division of Green and Sustainable Chemistry of EuChemS.
His main research interests are the catalytic valorization of biobased carbon sources, and the development of new reactivity using organic carbonates as modular substrates allowing to create new engineering, circular polymers and stereodefined small molecules. Arjan has (co)authored around 255 international (journal) publications and 6 patent applications, with total citations >20400 (h-index 77, i10-index 206).
