Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Passive samplers and bioassays combined for investigation of dissolved organic contaminants

Already some time ago we put out a paper on the investigation of dissolved organic contaminants using extracts of silicone rubber passive samplers in bioassays in Environmental Science and Pollution Research. This study shows the suitability of such an approach for determination of the bioavailable fraction of organic contaminants in the water phase. The study site was the Ythan catchment in Scotland, UK, and we used zebrafish and marine phytoplancton as test organims.

See all details of  "Evaluations of combined zebrafish (Danio rerio ) embryo and marine phytoplankton (Diacronema lutheri ) toxicity of dissolved organic contaminants in the Ythan catchment, Scotland, UK"

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Session track at Nantes meeting

One far goal of our activities to strengthen the role of communication within environmental sciences was an own session track at SETAC conferences.

I am really thrilled that we already reached this, maybe indicating how popular this topic is about to become. The call for sessions for the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2016 in Nantes, France, includes a track "Communication on and public perception of environmental risks". I had the opportunity to contribute a good share of the description:

This track is seeking to bring together knowledge and experience on how to communicate properly on environmental risks and the research done for detection, evaluation and mitigation of pollutant effects, to different target groups including decision/policy makers and the general public. Sessions within this track are expected to deal with strategies that can be implemented to organise data in support of communication tools development (e.g. databases and user friendly derived tools), to identify relevant information, to increase and evaluate public perception, to raise awareness on environmental issues and to use public impact for SETAC’s aim of environmental quality.

We from the SCIRIC AG have the role to take care of this track, organise session proposals and contribute our own ideas. As it looks right now it could become a set of very interesting and challenging discussions at the conference.

Sunday, August 09, 2015

SCIRIC - a major source for advice on communication

It is done! As of May 3rd, 2015, SETAC Europe, the European professional organisation for environmental toxicology and chemistry, has a group of experts officially formed to advise on proper environmental science and risk communication. This so called „Advisory Group on Science and Risk Communication (SCIRIC)“ will in future work on strengthening communication from within the SETAC community to all different target groups including the general public.
As the leading author of the proposal that restulted in the establishment of this group I am now chairing an initial steering committee to bring the group to live. This committee consists of several colleagues with strong interest for and expertise in science and risk communication, who are all very eager to develop this topic as an integral part of environmental research within SETAC.

In a nutshell, SCIRIC aims to become one of the major sources for advice on science and risk communication for SETAC members and maybe even beyond.

The working programme of the group is ambitious and challenging, but also very promising as a huge step forward into a future of better science and risk communication of environmental issues as a pre-requisite for a stronger public awareness of our research, findings and goals. We will basically base our activities on two pillars: the people and the topic.

For the „people part“ we aim at forming an interdisciplinary and international network of SETAC members with experience and/or expertise in communicating research. This measure already started back in 2012 with the first session at the Berlin conference and is ongoing until today with the sessions in Glasgow, Basel and latest Barcelona. In parallel we are increasing the number of submissions to the focused article series in ESEU. As a first outcome we seek to provide to the SETAC members a list of experts to consult in terms of questions regarding any kind of science and risk communication.

The „topic part“ has as a goal to fully understand environmental research as a topic for science and risk communication, through strictly analysing the properties, characteristics, and particularities of this topic with respect to communicating research findings. This analysis includes a complete list of target groups with a similar characterisation; a record of the connection between these target groups and environmental sciences, be it professional views, rational considerations, or rather emotional expectations, fears and desires; a full summary of the possible or imagniable findings, results and opinions to communicate; a list of the goals and desired impact of environmental scientists when communication their research.

Upon knowing the people and understanding the topic we will be able to develop taylor-made tools and strategies for proper science and risk communication of environmental research, set up trainings, workshops, and conferences, further advance the knowledge, and by that reach a high level of communication from within SETAC as well as maintain this quality.

This will tremendously increase societal and (by that) political impact of SETAC, thus leading to higher environmental quality and better human health.


As a nice side effect I designed another logo.