Gergely Tóth is a Research Scientist at the Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. He is the task leader of the issue ‘soil quality’ at the European Commission. His professional experiences include research and project coordination of land evaluation, soil conservation and land use planning, as well as teaching of soil science, land use planning, soil management and soil conservation. His research activities focus on the formulation, description and assessment of soil quality under different land use systems and environmental pressures. He was the initiator and chief developer (2000-2005) of an internet based land evaluation system in Hungary. In 2005-2006 he was involved in the drafting of the proposal for the European Framework Directive (COM (2006) 232) for soil protection. The task was to define soil criteria for delineating areas of threats (erosion, compaction, decline of organic matter, salinisation and landslides) to soil in Europe. In 2006 he acted as division chair ‘Agriculture-environment relationships’ for the European Society for Agronomy. He is currently leading a team for developing a soil quality evaluation framework applicable in soil-related policies in the European Union. Apart from his scientific research and policy support activities, he is involved in international cooperation development in soil science as well. He was the co-leader of the official European Commission delegation to China leading to collaboration agreements between the parties and acting manager of cooperative projects between China and the European Commission. His scientific knowledge, management and language skills and international experiences are well demonstrated, and prove his ability to perform the functions of the position, which he is nominated for, according to the highest standards.