A fruitful face-to-face cluster meeting for the Aquatic Pollutants’ TAP Action
What is the AquaticPollutants TAP1 Action?
This TAP Action is the third ERA-NET Cofund AquaticPollutants call - and second additional call.
It gathers a network of twelve European national projects focused on solving the challenge of contaminants of emerging concern (CEC)2 according to the specific research and development needs addressed by the main call content.
Since the TAP kick-off, one year ago, online meetings were led to build the joint TAP Action I implementation plan, which was delivered in October 2022. Since then, the TAP cluster RedCoPollutants is moving on developing all the activities included in the implementation plan to achieve the goals and vision of the cluster completed by the end of the year 2023. In order to facilitate this challenging phase, a two-day meeting was organised in Madrid, Spain. The cluster is happy to report that the meeting indeed marked another step in the TAP Cluster's progress.
What are the objectives of the cluster “RedCoPollutants”?
Its main target is to generate high-added-value knowledge to reduce the impact of emerging contaminants on humans and ecosystems. It also aims to create coordination between individual national projects for international alignment, greater impact and higher effectiveness.
Face-to-face meeting
The gathering was one meeting of a series to discuss mutual interests and mutually beneficial ways to collaborate, but also to share technical details of that collaboration such as the best methodologies and protocols for CEC monitoring and risk assessment, and the best technologies for their removal and mitigation. It also allowed informal discussions between the participants since networking at different levels is an added value for the members facilitating further progress. Special attention was given to horizontal and vertical networking between senior and young researchers.
The sessions gathered 30 researchers including senior and young researchers as well as PhD students from 7 different countries. They were led by the Scientific coordinator, Prof Angeles Blanco3.
The objectives of the meeting were to :
- Get to know each other
- Identify synergies and common activities
- Define links between different research projects: potential win-win collaborations models
- Review the activities planned in the Implementation Plan
The research project leaders were given space to discuss their objectives, methodologies and scientific research results. Synergies among the different project goals were established. For instance, discussions on analytical methods, hospital and urban wastewater treatments, pathogens and risks for agriculture, and human safety were addressed. A working programme for the next step has been implemented. Overall, attendees were satisfied with the meeting and its outcomes and look forward to the next opportunity to meet each other.
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Notes
1: Thematic Annual Programming
2: Contaminants of Emerging Concern
3: Angeles Blanco: Complutense University of Madrid, Spain , elected as the TAP Scientific C oordinator.