Water JPI 2018 Conference – Helsinki, Finland - 6-7 June 2018
The 2nd Water JPI Conference on “Emerging Pollutants in Freshwater Ecosystems” was held in Helsinki on 6-7 June 2018. Emerging Pollutants in Freshwater Ecosystems is a very topical theme: the provision of safe water for drinking purposes is threatened by the improper disposal of chemicals, animal and human waste, pesticides, emerging pollutants. On this occasion about 200 experts were gathered from 25 countries to share visions, inputs and outcomes of their research and knowledge on the nature of emerging contaminants and their behavior, on new approaches for managing the corresponding risks and solutions for treating and restoring environments. Regarding the political perspective, the contribution of the Finnish Minister of the Environment, Energy and Housing, Mr. Kimmo Tilikainen, who opened the Conference, was significant. He emphasised that the most important role of Policy Makers is that of choosing properly the objectives to pursue, in order to have a common and sustainable vision. Later on, the Head of the Eco-Innovation Unit of the EC, Mr. Pavel Misiga, stressed two aspects in line with the Water JPI challenges: the importance of complying with the actual European Regulatory Framework, which is periodically under revision, and the importance of aligning policies with “Research and Innovation” results. To this purpose, the foreseen revision of the Water Framework Directive will be a good opportunity to support a broader dialogue between Policy Makers and Researchers.
In advance of the Water JPI Conference the seven projects funded under Water JPI Call Pilot 2013, had their final evaluation meeting on 4 June,. All seven project presented their final results and outcomes of the projects to the Call Follow-up Group, which included interactive sessions led by Chair Steven Eisenreich from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Based on the discussions and outcomes, the Pilot Call with approximately 9 M€ funds, demonstrated major value for money. In summary, all seven projects, ensure major connectivity with partners and in some cases other projects, exchanging knowledge, achieved the planned objectives and a number had even broadened and exceeded their original goals. In particular the scientific outputs of the projects is considered to have a very high impact with regard this research topic and is undoubtedly very timely.
On June 5th, a special Policy Brief workshop was held for the projects. The aim of this workshop was to produce a draft joint policy brief related to the contaminants of emerging concern, that the projects had prepared during the spring. The main aim of this paper is to present the most important key messages derived from the projects, to a tragetted audience namely the decision- and policymakers. The workshop, included two outstanding keynotes by Prof. Annemarie van Wezel (Utrecht University/KWR Watercycle Research) and Prof. Norbert Kreuzinger (TU Wien), both discussing what they see as critical to ensure the scientific message is brought across in a language allowing the outcomes to have maximum influence on those who make major environmental decisions on behalf of citizens but based on sound and robust science. So how do you finalise the main messages for an influential policy brief. As a fruit of their achieved results, the projects worked out 15 key results/messages, which were presented to the public audience at the Water JPI Conference on June 6th. The projects concluded, for example, that a harmonized policy strategy that would consider the entire water cycle, including also water reuse, is urgently needed and that several new efficient methods to tackle the obvious problems that contaminants of the emerging concern cause, are urgently needed and novel methods have been found, from their research. The Policy Brief will be published officially later in the autumn 2018 by Water JPI.