Filip MARTEL
Colonel
Director of the departement Scientific and Technological Research of Defence
Biography
Filip Martel was born in Hasselt on 28 December 1966. After completing his secondary studies at the Sint-Jozefscollege in Hasselt, he started his military career at the section Interforces of the Royal Cadet School in Lier. In August 1985 he entered the Royal Military Academy, with the 140th Polytechnical Promotion, and graduated in December 1990.
Afterwards he successfully completed the trainings Bachelor in Economics and Master of Business Administration at the Centre for Postgraduate Studies (Postuniversitair Centrum Limburg – Hasselt University). In 1991 he joined the 17th Horse Artillery Regiment in Altenrath (Federal Republic of Germany), where he served as battery fire control officer and officer topographer in the battalion until 1994.
He was subsequently assigned to the Quality Assurance Service of the Belgian Land Forces, in the capacity of quality assurance representative (QAR) for light arms and ammunition, and was seconded to FN Herstal. During the same period, he also became an AQAP/ISO 9001 lead auditor and was active as both technical and lead auditor the next 10 years. He left FN Herstal in 1999 in order to enrol on the Senior Officer Course at the Royal High Institute for Defence in Laeken (Brussels).
After completing this course and the ensuing placement in the Division Armaments and Ammunition of the Equipment Assessment Centre, he joined the aforementioned division within the Technical Department of the Belgian Land Forces Staff in 2000.
When the unified structure was established, he became head of the Ammunition Safety Office within the Division Synthesis of the Directorate General Material Resources (DGMR), which would later be transformed into the Management Section of DGMR. During this period, he was in particular responsible for developing an adequate training infrastructure for the New Techniques of Combat Shooting (NTCS) and served as project officer in charge of the demilitarisation project for the sanitation of the Fort of Zwijndrecht.
By the middle of 2010, he became head of the Risk Management Subsection within the Management Section of DGMR, dealing with health and safety and environmental risks related to equipment and infrastructures. In June 2014, he took command of the Defence Laboratories (DLD), one of the Belgian Defence research institutes, specialized in CBRN, textiles and fuels and oils.
Since September 2018, he is the director of the Department Scientific and Technological Research of Defence of the Royal Higher Institute for Defence.
He is married to Urte Klüppelholz and lives in Heverlee (Leuven).