Deadline: 17 July
Website: http://www.euchems.eu/
Public Consultation on the Draft Scientific Opinion of The PPR Panel on The Follow-up of The Findings of The External Scientific Report “Literature Review of Epidemiological Studies Linking Exposure to Pesticides and Health Effects”
EFSA’s Pesticides Unit has launched an open consultation on the follow-up of the findings of the External Scientific Report “Literature review of epidemiological studies linking exposure to pesticides and health effects”. The methodological limitations affecting the quality of epidemiological studies on pesticides have been assessed in the document and specific recommendations on how to improve them. In addition, this document proposes a methodology for the integration of epidemiological evidence with data from experimental toxicology to delineate the potential contributions of epidemiological studies that complement classical toxicological studies conducted in laboratory animal species in the area of pesticide risk assessment.
Deadline: 28 July 2017
Website: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/
Feedback on Draft Regulation on the Application of Control & Mitigation Measures to Reduce the Presence of Acrylamide in Food
Acrylamide is a contaminant as defined in EU legislation and as such, it is a chemical hazard in the food chain. The mitigation measures set out in this draft Regulation are based on current scientific and technical knowledge and they have proven to result in lower levels of acrylamide without adversely affecting the quality and microbial safety of the product. Those mitigation measures have been established following extensive consultation of organisations representing affected food business operators, consumers and experts from competent authorities of Member States.
Deadline: 7 July 2017
Website: https://ec.europa.eu/
Consumer Confidence in Chemicals Improving 10 Years After REACH Entry into Force
On 1 June 2007, the REACH Regulation (the European Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical), cornerstone of EU chemicals legislation, entered into force with the objective of, among other, to improve citizens’ confidence in the safety of products. A recent Eurobarometer survey on chemical safety reveals the impact REACH has made in its 10 years’ existence. According to this study 44% of EU citizens consider that safety of chemicals contained in products has improved in the last 10-15 years. They also have a higher level of confidence in products manufactured in the EU compared to those imported from outside. Two-thirds of citizens are concerned about being exposed to hazardous chemicals, while in general, citizens in Northern Europe are better informed about the potential dangers of chemicals than citizens in Southern Europe.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/
ERC Awards 51 Grants for Innovation
The European Research Council (ERC) announced 51 ERC grant holders who will receive top-up funding to explore the commercial or innovation potential of the results of their EU funded research. Among other chemistry-related projects, there is one named “Scanner for novel chemical reactions and facebook of chemistry”, lead by Alexander Nesterov-Mueller (Karlsruher Institut für Tecnologie – KIT). Proof of Concept grants, worth €150,000 each and open to ERC grant holders, can be used, for example, to establish intellectual property rights, investigate business opportunities or conduct technical validation.
Source: https://erc.europa.eu/
New Guidance on Food Contact Materials
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has updated the guidance provided to applicants with clearer advice on how to submit dossiers for the safety assessment of substances to be used in plastic Food Contact Materials. This safety assessment is a condition for putting these materials on the market in the European Union. Previously covered in one guidance document, EFSA has now published separate scientific and administrative documents. The scientific guidance includes updated information on the dataset required to assess the genotoxic potential of a substance, while the administrative guidance details the application procedure and introduces new forms applicants should use when preparing and presenting an application.
Source: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/
Overview of the Higher Education System in Partner Countries
This overview, produced by Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), comprehends a series of documents that describe existing legal frameworks, policies in place as well as legislative developments and provide key statistical data of higher education systems. Documents were drafted by the national Erasmus+ offices present in five regions, Western Balkans (region 1), Eastern Partnership countries (Region 2), South-Mediterranean countries (Region 3), Russian Federation (Region 4) and Central Asia (Region 7), in cooperation with the competent national authorities.
Source: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/
MSCA 2017 Prize Winners
The Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) prize winners were announced at the MSCA 2017 Presidency Conference, “Mobility takes research further” in May by Director-General, Education and Culture of the European Commission Martine Reicherts. The winners were Dr. Kristina Bliznakova, in the category “Contribution to a Better Society” with her research on breast cancer screening; Dr. Chiara Mingarelli in “Communicating Science” for her work on gravitational waves; and Dr. Adam Celiz in “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” for his work on regenerative medicine and tissue engineering applications.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/
EU-China Summit: New Flagship Initiatives in Research and Innovation
The European Union and China agreed to boost their research and innovation cooperation under Horizon 2020 with a new package of initiatives targeting the areas of food, agriculture and biotechnologies, environment and sustainable urbanisation, surface Transport, safer and greener aviation, and biotechnologies for environment and human health, fields in which chemistry plays a crucial role. This is one of the outcomes of the 3rd EU-China Innovation Co-operation Dialogue, organised earlier this in the margins of the 19th EU-China Summit, and co-chaired by Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, and Wan Gang, China’s Minister of Science and Technology.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/
Council Defines its Negotiating Stance on Circular Economy
On 19 May 2017, the Council of the European Union agreed on a negotiating mandate to start negotiations with the European Parliament on all four legislative proposals on waste, which are part of the Circular economy package submitted by the Commission by the end of 2015. Before these proposals are approved both the European Parliament and the Council must give their green light. Negotiations for an agreement are expected to focus on a number of outstanding elements, including the definitions, the setting of binding targets and their calculation rules, end-of-waste criteria, extended producer responsibility schemes and waste prevention. EuCheMS has organised two circular economy related workshops – From Waste to Health and Protecting Endangered Elements.
Source: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/
American Chemical Society on the USA Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has recently expressed its disappointment regarding the plans to withdraw the United Stated of America from the Paris Climate Agreement, and the Society asks that this and future administrations reconsider this decision. The agreement, signed by 197 countries in 2015 and ratified by 147, is needed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and mitigate and adapt to climate change. According to ACS Executive Director and CEO Thomas Connelly Jr., “Climate change represents a real and current threat to our economy, health and welfare”.
Source: https://www.acs.org/
Car Emission Controls: Council Agrees of Reforms
The Council of the European Union has agreed on a general approach to reform the system of type-approval and market surveillance for motor vehicles. This major reform will modernise the current system, adapt it to new technologies available on the market and improve control tests on car emissions data, a process in which analytical chemistry takes part. All member states agreed to improve the harmonised implementation of the rules across the EU so as to reduce the possible differences in interpretation and application by national type-approval authorities and technical services. They also agreed that more effective market surveillance rules should apply to better detect non-compliance at an early stage.
Source: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/
Youth Initiative: Strategy for High Quality, Inclusive, Future-Oriented Education
The European Commission has adopted earlier this month new initiatives on school and higher education. The overall aim of these initiatives is to help Member States provide high quality and inclusive education for all young people through a series of concrete actions, so they acquire the knowledge and skills needed to participate fully in society, are able to respond to new opportunities and challenges opened up by for instance globalisation and technological change, and can tailor their education to the needs of the labour market. This package of initiatives includes a proposal on graduate tracking to help Member States collect information on what graduates do after their studies, an important indicator to analyse labour market needs which EuCheMS has recently collected in the field of chemistry and is currently being analysed under the 2nd Employment Survey for European Chemists.
Source: http://europa.eu/
European Parliament Gives Green Light to PRIMA
The European Parliament has given its support to the Partnership on Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA), an initiative aiming to develop much-needed solutions for a more sustainable management of water and agro-food systems. The main objective of the ten-year initiative (2018 – 2028), which is partly funded by EU’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, is to develop solutions to improve water availability and sustainable agriculture production in a region heavily distressed by climate change, urbanisation and population growth. The partnership currently consists of 19 participating countries: Algeria, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/
European Parliament Defends more Funding for Post H2020
In a non-legislative resolution, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) presented their assessment of the Horizon 2020 programme in which they state that H2020 must be primarily grant-based, that no more cuts should be made to the programme and that ‘excellence’ should remain the essential evaluation criterion while ‘impact’ should include economic and social effects. The resolution also included some recommendations for 9th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP9). Recommendations include an increased overall budget of EUR 120 billion for FP9; the reintroduction of the two stage evaluation; separation of defence research from civil research in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (in which EU budget is broadly defined), providing two different programs with two different budgets; and priority to funding for climate change research.
Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
MEPs Confront Commissioner on Monsanto Papers
Members of European Parliament stated at a plenary session earlier this month that correspondence from Monsanto (owner and producer of Roundup, a widely used herbicide based on the active substance glyphosate) which was recently disclosed, has shed doubt on the credibility of a number of Monsanto-sponsored studies. The studies were part of the evidence used by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to evaluate the safety of glyphosate but according to Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU agencies concluded that allegations stemming from “Monsanto papers”, if true, would have no impact on safety assessment conclusions. Some MEPs stressed that the substance’s safety assessment should be strictly science-based and that the process should steer clear of emotions. Others called for the launch of an independent review on glyphosate. Many MEPs agreed that low-risk herbicides should be better promoted.
Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
Horizon 2020 Evaluations
On 29 May 2017, the Commission published the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020, required by Article 32 of the regulation establishing Horizon 2020. The interim evaluation aims to contribute to improving the implementation of Horizon 2020 in its Work Programme 2018-2020, to provide the evidence-base for the report of the H2020 High Level Group on maximizing the impact of EU Research and Innovation programmes and to inform the design of the post H2020 Framework Programme. EuCheMS answer to the public consultation which preceded this report is available here.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/