New year, new ideas, more impact!

A note from Blanca Serrano Ramón, Secretary General of ECETOC

Dear all,

Happy New Year! Judging from all that we have in store, 2023 promises to be very active, engaging and – hopefully – full of impact!

Following a very successful and dynamic Scoping Meeting in 2022, we are launching several new Task Forces and we will be organising workshops on a variety of topics, from omics to smart in vivo studies, from risks to biodiversity to substances that activate liver receptors as endocrine disruptors… I invite you to have a look at the our new activities here and get in contact with me if you are interested in finding out more or taking part in any of these initiatives.

These new activities will be happening alongside our ongoing work, for which we anticipate important milestones, such as those related to Targeted Risk Assessment (TRA) tool. The team behind this tool, possibly ECETOC’s best known, has been working on a thorough review and update which will soon be unveiled via publication releases, video tutorials, Q&A sessions…

Besides the TRA manuscripts, we will of course continue publishing the results of our work – you can expect two more publications from the Special T4 Task Force series, one on standard information requirements for polymers, one on aquatic testing of particulate materials, etc.

While still addressing issues related to human health (for which two new Task Forces have just been launched), we will also increase the focus on our environment work, for example with a new task force on grouping approaches for persistence assessment. We will also take a coordination role on (environmental) NAMs activities, facilitating the creation a platform with a range of industry stakeholders and academics active on this topic. Our intention is to map these ongoing activities and ensure that further work builds on prior efforts thus engendering a coordinated and efficient approach overall – and we will kick-off the collaboration by convening a meeting of the platform core group in our offices in early 2023.

In 2023, too, we will of course continue (and increase) supporting the work of Cefic LRI and we plan to strengthen our role as trustworthy scientific advisor for other associations and consortia.

Building on past successes, we want to keep up our excellent relationship with ECHA and further expand our collaboration with JRC and the OECD (with whom we are cooperating on topics such as Safe and Sustainable by Design and dose response, respectively).

On the internal organisational front, after more than two decades of dedication and professionalism (but always with a personal touch), we will be very sad to say goodbye to Geneviève, who will retire in the spring. The rest of the Secretariat, however, is fully committed to carrying the torch and eager to connect and collaborate with all of you.

Given the current circumstances, I understand that travel is still difficult for some of our members, so we will continue offering hybrid meeting opportunities as much as possible. That said, we love connecting face to face and we look forward to seeing you in person at our meetings.

I would also like to start taking advantage of conferences and gatherings abroad to start visiting you and finding out how we can better work together and answer to your needs, so stay tuned!

As always, I look forward to meeting, exchanging, discussing, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

Let’s make 2023 a success for ECETOC,

Blanca