In addition, a range of Restriction proposals, Testing proposals and Harmonised classification and labelling consultations are also available – we invite you to take a look at them here.
EuChemS is an official accredited stakeholder of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
The Executive Board of the European Chemical Society met online on 19 October.
President Floris Rutjes chaired the meeting, where the Executive Board members contributed to the discussion on follow ups from the General Assembly meeting in Lisbon. Many of the key points were of strategic nature. In addition, policy activities including EuChemS joining COARA and EuChemS contributions to the Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform and High Level Roundtable on the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy stakeholder were considered by the attendees.
EuChemS Secretary General Nineta Hrastelj presented current state of EuChemS affairs. EuChemS Task Group Chairs were also invited to present recent activities of their respective Task Groups and bring up proposals for discussion regarding future activities.
The next meeting of the Executive Board is scheduled for February 2023.
The call for nominations for several awards from the European Chemical Society – namely, the EuChemS Gold Medal Award, the EuChemS Lecture Award, the EuChemS Award for Service, and the EuChemS Historical Landmark Award – are open and will close on 19 December 2022 18:00 CET.
The EuChemS Gold Medal Award is given to exceptional chemists every two years, the EuChemS Lecture Award honours the major achievements of junior scientists, and the EuChemS Award for Service acknowledges outstanding commitment to fostering Chemistry in Europe. Last but not least, the EuChemS Historical Landmark Award recognises historical sites of importance from a chemistry standpoint.
In addition, two EuChemS’ Professional Networks opened up calls for nominations. The Division of Organic Chemistry has two open calls: it’s Award for Research and its Award for Service. These calls are open until 31 December 2022. Finally, the call for the Division of Green and Sustainable Chemistry’s European Sustainable Chemistry Award (ESCA) is also open until 15 December 2022.
We are looking forward receiving your nominations by the indicated deadlines!
The key aim of COARA is the reform of the research assessment framework, turning it into a more impact-focused, transparent and qualitative metric. The long-term goal of this the improvement of the quality and impact of research.
By signing, EuChemS joins a growing number of organisations – academic and research associations, authorities and agencies that work with research implementation, universities and many more. The signatories subscribe to ten commitments related to conducting research assessment outlined in the document. These are, amongst other things, highlight that potentially misleading or arbitrary criteria, such as the ranking of the institution the research originates from should be avoided, and how innovative, evidence based frameworks should be encouraged, developed and constantly reviewed.
However, with other countries for which Horizon association could be beneficial – namely the United Kingdom and Switzerland – the situation remains unclear, which sends them looking for alternatives. One such is the recently signed bilateral research deal between the two countries, whose progress on association with the Horizon programme remains at a standstill despite calls from the international research community, supported by EuChemS as well. The United Kingdom aims to strengthen cooperation with Switzerland in “deep science” and “deep tech” via joint initiatives, exchange of information and conferences. While cooperation is always welcome, the scientific community from the concerned countries emphasize that this is not a substitute for Horizon, the association with would be by far the best outcome. In addition, the lack of concrete actions in the deal, that takes the form of a “Memorandum of Understanding” is also a point of criticism.
The European Commission addressed the food security issues caused by severe mineral fertiliser shortages.
The Commission’s communication, released on 9 November, lists potential means to overcome short term challenges posed by the supply line disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as deals with long term issues regarding the sustainability of fertilisers, and the resilience of the food chain. On these matters, the recent set of actions overlap with the Farm to Fork strategy. Amongst the proposed actions, practices for fertiliser use optimisation and usage reduction, as well as financial support actions targeted at vulnerable areas can be found. An important part of the optimisation process is the focus on sustainable farming, sustainable fertiliser production (such as using biomethane or green hydrogen for ammonia production instead of relying on nitrogen) and on substituting mineral fertilisers with organic ones.
The European Chemical Society (EuChemS) continues to investigate sustainable fertilising processes and food production from scientific and policy perspectives, as numerous materials that concern food production are classified as rare ones. In April, EuChemS held a workshop on the element of nitrogen, and on potential means of sustainable ammonia production and use, ranging from precision agriculture using drones to using anammox bacteria to nitrogen removal from wastewater. In 2023, another agriculture related workshop is scheduled to be held, focusing on the element of Phosphorus. In the Commission’s paper, it is highlighted that the European fertiliser industry is dependent on phosphate imports – therefore its crucial for the long-term resilience of the Union.
The proposed revision of the Ambient Air Quality Directives will set air quality standards, aligned with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, and establish a trajectory to achieve zero pollution for air by 2050. The annual limit value for the main pollutant – fine particulate matter (PM2.5) – is proposed to be cut by more than half.
The revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive pushes for cleaner rivers, lakes, groundwaters and seas, and making wastewater treatment more cost-effective. It is also relevant from an energy-neutrality and circular economy point of view: the wastewater sector has significant untapped renewable energy production potential. EU countries will be required to track industrial pollution at source to increase the possibilities of re-using sludge and treated wastewater, avoiding the loss of resources.
The Commission proposed several improvements to support health and environmental protection including recovery and water treatment obligations. In addition microplastic concentration will be monitored. New standards for micropollutants will also be introduced, as well as an updated list of water pollutants, to which 25 new substances will be added.
The main topic of the Tripartite Social Summit, held on 19 October, was “Tackling the energy crisis and the cost of living crisis: How to protect the economy, businesses and workers”. Leaders of the European Union met with social partners to discuss the unprecedented rise in energy prices following the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has adverse effects on welfare and economy.
The European Commission aims respond to the crisis with the robust REPowerEU Plan, the goal of which is to transform the European energy system by relying on renewables, efficiency improvement, and other innovative technologies, such as large scale digitalisation. In addition, the Commission recently proposed an emergency regulation in order to secure gas supply by joint purchasing, solidarity and allocation mechanisms between member states. In addition, by March 2023, the commission intends to establish a price benchmark, and until that time proposes limits on and correction mechanisms of gas prices.
However, the crisis also concerns scientific infrastructures. Numerous research facilities require a high amount of energy in order to properly function – therefore their operational costs increased by a proportionally much higher margin than of regular user’s. These facilities are often forced to operate with a reduced capacity or even consider temporary shutdowns – one of them being CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, which had to reduce its operational capacity by 20%. The unpredictability of the often-irregular energy needs for research poses further challenges, which makes providing support difficult.
The International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI), organised by the European Commission and the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, was held between 19-21 October 2022. The Conference, hosted in Brno, highlighted how research infrastructures and their innovation can respond to contemporary challenges of climate, energy, infectious diseases and equal global access to infrastructures. As the topics were of international concern, participants and speakers were present from across the globe.
On the last day of the conference, the Czech Presidency released a Declaration on fostering a Global Ecosystem of Research Infrastructures (RIs). The document provides an in-depth outlook on general policy perspectives on RIs and serves as a call for action to support RIs by prioritising them during policymaking in a wide range of related areas, consider them as strategic investments and thus ensure a robust and stable framework for them that includes funding and networking opportunities, amongst other calls.
The Member States of the EU as well as the European Commission expressed support for the call, which they intend to support using their own processes. In addition, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, also present at ICRI, pledged to assist in underpinning the development of a global research infrastructure ecosystem.
The Environment Council of the European Commission secured a negotiating mandate for the conference, as well as for the COP15 Biodiversity Conference to be held in December. The EU pushes to increase actions to mitigate the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises and deliver on the Paris Agreement, aiming to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The EU stated its readiness to further increase its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), in line with the outcome of the ongoing ‘Fit for 55′ negotiations. In addition, the Union adoptied a Mitigation Work Programme, as well as initiatives aimed at ending inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, phasing down coal and reducing methane emissions.
The European Parliament is also being represented at the event – 14 members of the Committees ENVI and ITRE are present in Sharm El Sheikh. MEP Bas Eickhout leads the parliament’s delegation, which is there to collaborate with parliamentarians of non-EU countries as well as representatives of international organisations.
The EU’s focus at the COP15 on biodiversity will be emphasizing the target of protecting 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030, focusing on areas that are valuable for biodiversity and ecosystem services. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s pledged to double external funding for biodiversity, in particular for the most vulnerable countries around the world – for which an adequate resource mobilization is needed.
In addition, a range of Restriction proposals, Calls for Comments and Evidence and Harmonised classification and labelling consultations are also available – we invite you to take a look at them here.
EuChemS offered the award for the best chemistry entry as a “specially donated prize” in the competition, which aims to highlight and reward the scientific achievements of young European students aged between 14 and 20. The recipients of the EuChemS prize, Ema Bojnec and and Daša Žuman from Slovenia, have worked on a linear structure notation for compounds for visually impaired in chemistry.
EuChemS supports the best chemistry contributions at the EUYCS with its specially donated prize since 2014 – we invite you to learn about past awardees and their projects here. You can also watch this year’s award ceremony here, to see all the successful projects of the invited young scientists.
Six additional community translations of the 2021 2nd version of the EuChemS Periodic Table were approved and published online recently. With the addition of Basque, Dutch, Galician, Hungarian, Italian and Ukrainian translations, the document can be accessed in a total of 14 languages.
The EuChemS periodic table aims to emphasize element scarcity, and the importance of sustainability in resource use through unique visual means: by demonstrating the available amount of each element on a logarithmic scale, and in addition, using colour coding to show how sustainable the societal uses of them are.
As EuChemS considers this as a critical societal message, we find it important to increase the visibility and accessibility of it beyond language barriers. We rely on our community of chemists, educators, students and others to assist in getting this document to as many people as possible in their native languages. While the translations are reviewed and approved by experts from EuChemS network, the bulk of the translation work is done by contributors from various backgrounds and countries. Therefore, we would like to express our gratitude to those who contributed with these translations, as well as invite all to submit a translation in their own languages.
You can see the new translations, and learn more about the EuChemS periodic table here.
