Earlier this month, the European Commission (EC) presented the Environmental Implementation Review, a tool to improve implementation of EU environmental policy. The review includes three elements: 1) 28 country reports, providing an overview of how environmental policy and legislation are being implemented, and what the identified strengths and weaknesses are in each Member State; 2) A Communication summarising the political conclusions of the country reports and examining common trends, in areas such as air quality, waste management and the circular economy, water quality and protecting nature and biodiversity; and 3 )Recommendations for improvements, summarising suggestions communicated to Member States. According to this review, the most pressing implementation gaps across EU Member States are found in the policy fields of waste management, nature and biodiversity, air quality, noise and water quality and management, fields in which chemistry plays an essential role. Source: http://europa.eu/
Antonio Tajani (EPP, IT) won the Parliament’s presidential election. Among other responsibilities, the President of the European Parliament (EP) ensures that parliamentary procedures are properly followed, oversees Parliament’s various activities and committees, represents EP in all legal matters and in its international relations, and provides his final agreement to the EU budget. The EP is currently looking into, and amending, many legislative proposals where chemistry is deeply involved, such as the Circular Economy Package.
Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
Roughly one year after adopting its Circular Economy Package, the European Commission (EC) reported on the delivery and progress of key initiatives of its December 2015 Action Plan. In the last year the EC has taken measures in areas such as waste, ecodesign, food waste, organic fertilisers, and innovation and investment. Circular economy principles have been gradually integrated in industrial best practices, green public procurement, or in the use of cohesion policy funds, nonetheless the legislative packages presented in 2015 are still in discussion at the European Parliament and Council. Together with the report, the Commission also issued guidance to Member States on converting waste to energy and proposed a targeted improvement of legislation on certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.
During 2017 the EC will propose, among other, a Plastic Strategy, and a legislative proposal on minimum quality requirements to promote the safe reuse of treated waste water.
The Chemistry Rediscovered contest intends to promote chemistry among young high-school students from all Europe. This will be achieved with the help of teachers, who will develop scientific projects together with their students and encourage them to present their findings, in the form of a video-experiment, together with an accurate experimental protocol.
Deadline: 17 February 2017
Website: http://www.euchems.eu/
In this interview recently conducted by EuCheMS, readers will meet Christian Schärf, Paul Rathke, and Friedrich Wanierke, the winners of the 2016 European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) EuCheMS Award. Their research project, “Alpha-aluminium oxide-based gemstones: Development of a chemical synthesis process prompted by current mining conditions”, started from their interest in gemstones, but soon they realised there were also some positive social outcomes of creating gemstones in laboratories. This interview shows their commitment and passion for chemistry. Source: http://www.euchems.eu/
You are cordially invited to subscribe to Chemistry in Europe, EuCheMS new newsletter. Its objective is to inform about research in Europe, to provide highlights from EuCheMS Member Organisations and Professional Networks, and to look into policy related developments. You can subscribe to this new newsletter here. Source: http://www.euchems.eu/
In its 2016 annual Enlargement Package, the European Commission assessed where the countries of the Western Balkans and Turkey stand in implementing key political and economic reforms, and what needs to be done to address the remaining challenges. Related to Science, Research and Innovation there is a good level of preparation in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, while in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo the preparations are still at an early stage. Some of the main recommendations and which are valid for all countries from the region are to increase investment in research and to work on capacity building measures. Source: https://wbc-rti.info/
The European Research Council (ERC) has recently announced the awarding of its Consolidator Grants to 314 top researchers in Europe. The funding, worth a total of € 605 million, will give them a chance to have far-reaching impact on science and beyond. The grants fall under the ‘ Excellent Science’ pillar of Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme. The ERC has evaluated 2,274 research proposals this time, out of which 13.8% have been selected for funding. Twenty – eight percent of grants were awarded to female applicants. The grants will create an estimated 2,000 jobs for postdocs, PhD students and other staff working in the grantees’ research teams. Source: https://erc.europa.eu/
The European Parliament´s Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee voted a draft resolution welcoming the European Open Science Cloud model proposed by the Commission, including the plan to extend its use to the industry and to governments. ITRE Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), stated that this open cloud initiative would allow development of a trusted, open environment for storing, sharing and reusing scientific data and results. MEPs also“urged the Commission to lead by example and make all the research data and its results, funded by European Programmes, such as Horizon 2020, EFSI, ESI and others to be open by default, based on the findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) principles”. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
In order to achieve the 2030 objectives of the Clean Air Programme, the Directive on the reduction of national emissions of certain atmospheric pollutants has entered into force on 31 December 2016. This Directive sets national reduction commitments for the five pollutants (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ammonia and fine particulate matter) responsible for acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone pollution which leads to significant negative impacts on human health and the environment. Source: http://ec.europa.eu/
The ad hoc European Parliament Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurement in the Automotive Sector (EMIS), has presented last month its findings and draft recommendations. The draft text is a result of 10 months’ intensive work to reconstruct the events and collect evidence, in particular on the role of the EU Commission and member states before and after the car emission test cheating scandal. It focuses on discrepancies between the NOx emissions of diesel cars in the laboratory and on the road and on the process of adapting emissions tests to reflect real-world conditions. The draft report will be under debate and should be put to committee vote on 28 February and the final plenary vote in April. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
Earlier this month, the European Commission has decided to register a European Citizens Initiative (ECI) inviting the Commission “to propose to Member States a ban on glyphosate, to reform the pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use”. Should the ECI receive one million statements of support within one year, from at least seven different Member States, the Commission will have to react within three months. The Commission can decide either to follow the request or not and in both instances would be required to explain its reasoning. EuCheMS will bring its scientific expertise and join the debate by co-organising a workshop at the European Parliament in May this year. Source: http://europa.eu/
The Council of the European Union has recently approved the EU’s legislative priorities for 2017 as agreed beforehand with the European Parliament and the European Commission. This will help the three EU institutions to pool their efforts and to ensure substantial progress in fields where they are most needed. In this concise document the EU institutions agreed to focus, among other, on the follow-up to the Paris agreement and the clean energy for all Europeans package, and on improving waste management in a circular economy. Source: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/
EuCheMS has recently submitted its response to the public consultation on the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020. In its answer, EuCheMS reaffirms the importance of Horizon 2020 as a research funding mechanism, the need for further simplification in the application process, the importance of further European collaboration as to avoid fragmentation and unnecessary duplication of research resources, and the need to increase the level of funding in order to speed-up science answers to our current global challenges. Source: http://www.euchems.eu/
Malta will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union during the first semester of 2017, following six months of Slovak Presidency. Research is one of the Maltese Presidency priorities, with a focus on strengthening the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in research and innovation, primarily through ensuring legislative deliberations on the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) initiative. The Maltese Presidency also intends to identify areas where monitoring and reporting burdens in the European Research Area (ERA) could be reduced. Furthermore, they will focus on antimicrobial resistance by making progresses on the Regulations on Veterinary Medicinal Products and Medicated Feed, and on circular economy, envisaging to progress the negotiations for the six Waste Directives while also promoting discussions on marine litter and on the plastics strategy. Under the Maltese Presidency, EuCheMS will organise a workshop in Malta, in April, on the topic of Circular Economy and pharmaceuticals. Source: http://www.eu2017.mt/
In its recent Council Conclusions, the Council of the European Union, calls countries for, among others, further promotion of science and research careers. It also calls for the promotion mentorship activities of senior researchers from all sectors to work with early stage researchers. The Council also calls for more international cooperation and for the promotion best practices and policies to support the career advancement of early stage women researchers. Source: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/
The ERC Scientific Council decided to take the preliminary steps to reinstate the Synergy Grant funding scheme in 2018. This comes after a thorough assessment of the ongoing projects funded through the pilot calls in 2012 and 2013. Synergy Grants can bring together top researchers with complementary skills and knowledge and enable them to jointly address a commonly chosen challenging research problem in unconventional ways, potentially leading to major breakthroughs that scientists would not be able to achieve working alone. The future Synergy Grant call for proposals, including its budget, dates and eligibility criteria, should be published in the 2018 ERC Work Programme to be adopted by the European Commission in 2017. Source: https://erc.europa.eu/
The European Food Safety Agency has shared the raw data that was used in the EU safety evaluation of the pesticide glyphosate. The information has been sent to a group of MEPs who submitted an official request to see the information. The information released includes the raw data from all the genotoxicity and carcinogenicity studies used in the glyphosate assessment. Combined with the EFSA Conclusion and background documents (more than 6,000 pages), the raw data provide enough information to allow full independent scrutiny of the EU scientific assessment. Source: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/
A new Joint Research Centre (JRC) study presented at the 9th Conference of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan), concludes that the EU is vulnerable to supply bottlenecks of some materials needed in wind, photovoltaic and electric vehicles technologies. Such materials are for instance rare earths – neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr) and dysprosium (Dy) – used in permanent magnets for wind and electric vehicles technologies, as well as for graphite (C) required in electric vehicles rechargeable batteries. Moderate supply issues are seen for indium (In), silver (Ag) and silicon (Si) required in the photovoltaic technology as well as cobalt (Co) and lithium (Li) requisite in electric vehicles. In order to tackle resilience to supply shortages, the report suggests to increase EU production of raw materials, to recycle, or to use substitute materials, an option supported by EuCheMS. Source: https://ec.europa.eu/
Report on Water Quality in Europe
The quality of drinking water and bathing water, and the effectiveness of waste water treatment across the European Union continues to improve, according to a new European Environment Agency (EEA) report recently published. Nonetheless, pollution from sources like waste water treatment plants, agricultural runoff and storm water overflows, and emerging risks like micro pollutants from personal care products pose challenges to maintaining clean and healthy water for people’s use. Water quality is a topic currently high on the European policy agenda, with the European Commission currently running a public consultation on Policy Options to set Minimum Quality Requirements for Reused Water. Source: http://www.eea.europa.eu/
The PISA Survey (Programme for International Student Assessment), published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is a key international educational assessment tool providing valuable input for possible educational reforms. The 2015 edition of the PISA survey, which is based on tests given to 15/16 years old students, offers key insights into the performance of school systems in 28 EU Member States and 72 countries and economies worldwide. Some initial conclusions point to a decrease of gender differences in terms of achievement, even though, globally, in terms of preferences, there are more boys than girls interested in chemistry or physics. Also, the Socio-economic status continues to be a strongly influential factor for 15-year-old students’ achievement in science, with much higher shares of low achievers among the lower social groups than among students of higher socio-economic status. Source: https://ec.europa.eu/
The European Environmental Agency (EEA) Environmental indicator report 2016 gives a snapshot of progress made so far by the 28 EU Member States in meeting a selected number of EU policy objectives. These are relevant to achieving the three key priority objectives of the EU’s 7th Environment Action Programme: natural capital; resource-efficient, low-carbon economy, and people’s health and well-being, fields in which chemistry is already providing many solutions. The report complements the previously published European environment state and outlook 2015 (SOER) report. Among other evidence, the report shows that EU environmental policies have been more successful on reducing pressures on the environment, improving efficiency and meeting 2020 climate and energy targets than on reducing overall impacts on people’s health and well-being or on ensuring the resilience of natural systems. Source: http://www.eea.europa.eu/
The signing of an agreement between the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the European Commission earlier this month, marks the formal kick-off on the creation of the European Union Observatory for Nanomaterials (EU-ON). The information sources for the observatory will include data generated by various pieces of EU legislation regulating the safe use of nanomaterials (e.g. REACH, biocides, cosmetics), from national inventories, research projects, and market studies. By that, it will bring added value not only to European citizens but also to policy makers, industry, NGOs and workers. In its first phase, which will be concluded by the Summer 2017, the observatory will only collect information that is already available and not generate any new data. Source: https://echa.europa.eu/
