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The European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), in conjunction with the Association of European Toxicologists and European Societies of Toxicology (EUROTOX), the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), the International Society of Exposure Sciences (ISES) and Chemical Week, is offering a €100,000 award to support promising new research in the field of exposure sciences.
'Exposure studies' mean studies that link the sources and levels of environmental contaminant in different media to human contact. The purpose of this is to develop capabilities for the identification, assessment and prevention of the risks from such contacts.
The award will be presented to an early career scientist with a concept for creative interdisciplinary research. This could for example include exposure assessment methods using novel approaches and/or tools; innovative concepts for interpreting exposure data; or strengthening the aspects of exposure in risk assessment.
The research should be complementary to the Long-range Research Initiative's (LRI) objectives, a chemical industry funded programme that aims at enhancing scientific knowledge to help protect health and the environment.
The award is intended for a European-based scientist with less than ten years post-doctoral experience. Active involvement in interdisciplinary research and access to appropriate networks will be considered in the selection.
The LRI Innovative Science Award will be officially presented at the LRI Annual Workshop in November 2010. The 2010 Awardee will be expected to present the results of his/her research supported by the Award at the LRI Annual Workshop in November 2011.
The competition covers the broad field of exposure sciences directed at the impacts for humans with particular focus on:
- Evaluating exposures to mixtures (both from preparations and in multi-component environments);
- Characterising the nature of exposures from combined exposures (chemical, biological or physical stressors);
- Consumer exposures in indoor environments;
- Predictive exposure and computational exposure sciences.
Other aspects include but are not limited to:
- Improved strategies for the interpretation of monitoring data;
- Exposure analysis of environmental contaminants;
- Determining the contribution of different exposure routes;
- Real life exposure scenarios;
- Indirect exposures to humans from environmental sources.
The Selection Panel of the Cefic-LRI Innovative Science Award 2010 is proud to announce the selected candidates that will proceed to the final stage of the Award:
- Dr. Juana Maria Delgado Saborit, University of Birmingham, UK - "In quest of new fingerprints of exposure to VOC from consumer products"
- Dr. Karin Sofia Ljung, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden - "Risk assessment of manganese exposure to infants"
- Dr. Ming-Yi Tsai, Swiss TPH, Switzerland - "Real-time mobile monitoring to characterize the spatiotemporal distribution of multiple air pollutants in urban areas"
Presentation of the winner: 10 JUNE 2010
The presentation of the three finalists and the selection of the winner will take place at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Brussels. For more information on the hotel, please visit www.radissonblu.com/royalhotel-brussels or take a virtual tour at http://www.photowebeu.com/radisson-blu/royal-hotel-brussels/.
The structure of the event will be as follows:
12h30 - 13h30 Welcome Coffee
13h30 - 15h45 Presentation of the 3 finalists
15h45 - 16h30 Deliberation of the Jury
16h30 - 16h45 Announcement of the winner
16h45 - 18h00 Cocktail room
For more information feel free to send an e-mail to lri@cefic.be
Since I won the Award only a year ago I have been busy putting the project into action. It has been great having the freedom to, and experience of, setting up my own project, and managing both the science and financial aspects of the project. Whilst it was initially planned that the award would provide me with an extra years salary (I was originally employed on a 3 year postdoc with the MRC), winning the award enabled me to apply and be successfully promoted to an Investigator Scientist, a permanent post. This in turn has enabled me to employ a research assistant (who started just 2 weeks ago) to work alongside me on the project. In addition to increasing the amount of work and data, this will also provide me with valuable supervisory experience. The award has also given me with the opportunity to travel to European conferences and to present my project. This has improved my confidence as a scientist and as a presenter. I look forward to what the project will discover and hope it will help me to further my career as an independent scientist." Emma Taylor, 2008 LRI Innovative Science Award winner.
"In 2005 I won the SETAC Europe / Cefic LRI innovative science award in recognition of the research proposal entitled: "Predicting the response of aquatic invertebrates to chemical stress using species traits and stressor mode of action". The € 100.000, - award was used for travelling, attending conferences, hiring laboratory assistance and buying laboratory consumables for Mascha Rubach, the PhD student working on this subject since 2006 which was funded by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta Crop Protection. The money provided us the means to perform experiments that were very costly (e.g. radioactive ones) and bring the field of the science forward by organising sessions at SETAC conferences and a international SETAC workshop called TERA in Canada in August 2009. We also published a letter to the editor on this subject for the SETAC IEAM journal and the ACS ES&T journal in 2008. The money really gave me the opportunity to explore my own way into this new subject and brought me much scientific gains and independence. The last part of the money will be spend on an extension of the contract of Mascha to finish her thesis and help other students to continue working in this subject. I sincerely thank SETAC and CEFIC-LRI for this award." Paul van den Brink, 2005 LRI Innovative Science Award winner.
"Since I received the Cefic LRI award, I am still working at the Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Due to this award, I was enrolled in the 'talent' programme of our institute, in which I am guided in my career by the Human resource management to become Associate Professor first, and then possibly towards a full professorship (with certain specified goals I have to reach every year, such as management work, publications, successful supervision of PhD-students, teaching and proposals).
The subject of my successful Cefic award proposal was of interest to many other researchers, and as a result, our department was asked to participate in the EU-project NEWGENERIS (www.newgeneris.org) and a fruitful collaboration was generated with the RIVM (the national institute of public health and the environment; www.rivm.nl), because of potential new approaches in testing germ-line mutagenicity requiring a lower number of laboratory animals than with traditional methods.
The studies proposed in my original Cefic LRI proposal that was awarded, are still going on. The 100,000 euros of Cefic were doubled by the RIVM to 200,000 euros, which was sufficient to appoint a PhD-student for 4 years. This PhD-student is now finishing her work and will obtain her PhD in the beginning of next year, with at least 4-5 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals." Roger Godschalk, 2004 LRI Innovative Science Award winner.