René Van Grieken received his M. Sc. and Ph. D. degrees in chemistry at the University of Gent in Belgium. In 1972-1973, he was visiting Professor at the Department of Oceanography of Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA. Since 1973, he has been Professor of Analytical and Environmental Chemistry at the University of Antwerp ("Campus Drie Eiken") in Belgium, and Full Professor since 1985. He was co-founder (together with Freddy Adams, who retired in 2003, and Renaat Gijbels, who retired in 2004) of the Micro- and Trace Analysis Centre (MiTAC) in the Department of Chemistry, and has since then been director of MiTAC (colleagues are now: Annemie Bogaerts, Koen Janssens, Piet Van Espen and Luc Van Vaeck). MiTAC involves approximately 70 researchers, studying the methodology of various micro- and trace analysis techniques and their applications. Within MiTAC, he directs the Environmental Analysis Group, with 15-20 full time researchers.

At present, he is editor-in-chief of the journal X-Ray Spectrometry, web-editor of spectroscopyNOW, associate editor of Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, member of the editorial board of e.g. the Eurasian Journal of Analytical Chemistry (EJAC), e-Preservation Science, the International Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the Chinese journal "Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis" and the journal "Atmospheric Pollution Research", associate editor, founding member and section editor for Wiley's "Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry", officially licenced expert in radioprotection, member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences (Commission of Oceanology), co-chairman of the IUPAC-IOCD Working Party on Environmental Analytical Chemistry in Developing Countries, honorary member-for-life of the European X-Ray Spectrometry Association, member of the scientific committee of Flanders Marine Institute, member of the advisory panel of the KBC Eco Fund, advisor of the International Foundation for Science, long-term member of the scientific advisory board of the European X-Ray Spectrometry conferences and the organising committee of the Denver X-Ray conferences, etc.

He received in 2003 in Ostend the Delcroix Award for the Marine Environment and Health (picture), in 2008 in Denver the Birks Award in X-Ray Spectrometry and in 2009 in Budapest the CSI Award.

He is (co-)author of about 560 articles in international scientific journals (cited over 8000 times according to Web of Sciences), about 210 contributions to conference proceedings and book chapters, and 13 books. He has been an invited lecturer or member of the organising committee of some 240 international scientific conferences.

The University of Antwerp implies 216 research groups. On the basis of objective criteria, 10 of these have recently been declared as Centers of Excellence for research. The Environmental Analysis Group in MiTAC is one of these 10. Together with two research groups in the Department of Biology, the research cluster ECO is formed.