SETAC Europe 36th Annual Meeting

Time: 13:30—17:30
Room: TBD
Course level: Intermediate

This course aims to make environmental professionals familiar with a relatively new, more inclusive risk assessment framework that takes advantage of the wide range of information that is often available on the exposure and toxicological effects of environmental pollutants. The technique that is discussed in this course is the use of chemical activity to assess environmental risks. Chemical activity is a well-established basic concept in environmental chemistry that is used to represent how “active” chemical substances are in their environmental state. “Active” means how well they interact with receptors, how they move and translocate, and what toxicological effects they can exert. Concentrations and dosages, which are normally used for environmental risk assessments of pollutants, are often difficult metrics to use because concentrations in different environmental media or toxicological tests can often not be easily compared, as it amounts to "comparing apples and oranges." As a result, much available exposure and toxicological information never makes it into a risk assessment. The need for more inclusive novel techniques for risk assessment is especially urgent when replacing animal tests with in-vitro tests.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

In this course, you will learn how to:

• Express exposure and effects data in terms of chemical activities;
• Use chemical activities to conduct scientifically sound risk assessments and weight of evidence (WoE) analyses
• Graphically visualize chemical activity information from multiple species, exposure studies, or toxicity studies to assess risk.

The course will further show examples of how activity-based risk assessments have been performed for certain POPs and PFAS and how these risk assessments have been perceived in judicial evaluations.

Target Audience

The course is aimed at environmental toxicologists and chemists of all types because the subject matter applies to all involved in exposure and toxicological effects research. The course material is especially useful for those involved in risk assessment, including academics, government and business oriented scientists.e.g. the course is targeted at professionals already working in Environmental Risk Assessment. Scientists with a biology background will find this course especially interesting because it covers key chemical principles not covered in most biology and toxicology programs.

Instructors

Frank Gobas (Simon Fraser University)

Time: 13:30—17:30
Room: TBD
Course level: Introductory

This course will provide participants with a comprehensive introduction to landscape-level ecological risk assessment using the modular, open-source xLandscape framework. Participants will learn how to apply existing xLandscape models for exposure and effect modeling, as well as how to develop new components for the system. 

xLandscape is a modular, flexible, and transparent framework for spatiotemporally explicit landscape modeling. It allows for the integration of various data sources and models to simulate complex environmental processes at the landscape level. The course will cover: 
•    The fundamentals of landscape-level risk assessment. 
•    The component-based software architecture of xLandscape. 
•    The application of models for Aquatic Risk, Water Plants, and Pollinator Risk. 
•    Hands-on exercises in applying xLandscape to real-world case studies. 

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the principles of landscape-level ecological risk assessment. 
• Describe the architecture and capabilities of the xLandscape framework. 
• Apply existing xLandscape models to assess risk to aquatic organisms, water plants, and pollinators. 
• Critically evaluate the results of landscape-level simulations. 

Target Audience

This course is designed for a broad audience of environmental scientists, including students, academic researchers, industry professionals, and regulatory scientists, who are interested in landscape-level ecological risk assessment. A basic understanding of environmental modeling and risk assessment is recommended, but no prior experience with xLandscape is required. 

Instructors

Thorsten Schad (Freelancer), Sascha Bub (Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Hochschule (RPTU)), Julian Heinrich (Bayer AG), Bas Buddendorf (Wageningen University & Research (WUR)), Sebastian Multsch (BASF AG)

Time: 8:30—17:30
Room: TBD
Course level: Intermediate

Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) is a framework developed by the European Commission to embed safety and sustainability at the core of innovation in chemicals and advanced materials' life cycles. Rather than treating these aspects as afterthoughts, SSbD promotes their integration from the earliest stages of product and process development.

This course provides academic researchers and industry professionals with a thorough grounding in SSbD principles, including safety assessment (human health and environmental risks), environmental sustainability assessment (LCA, social LCA, lifecycle costing), and regulatory and market drivers. Participants will gain hands-on experience applying SSbD approaches to real industrial case studies using advanced tools such as New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) and the SUNSHINE e-infrastructure platform.

Designed for scientists, engineers, R&D teams, and innovation leaders, this training supports practical decision-making by combining functionality, safety, and sustainability performance. Attendees will leave with actionable insights and tools to implement SSbD in their own research projects, product pipelines, or innovation strategies–driving more responsible and future-proof design.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

This hands-on training course aims to prepare participants with the knowledge and practical skills needed to apply Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) principles, methods and tools to industrial case studies. The course focuses on integrating safety, sustainability, and innovation in the design and development of products and processes, fostering a proactive approach to risk management and environmental responsibility.

Target Audience

The course is targeted to professionals in the fields of Safety or Sustainability, willing to learn about Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) and approaches for safety and sustainability in innovation.

Instructors

Irantzu Garmendia (Aguirre European Commission - Joint Research Centre (JRC)), Alberto Katsumiti (GAIKER Technology Centre), Blanca Suárez-Merino (TEMAS Solutions), Arianna Livieri (GreenDecision), Stella Stoycheva (Yordas Group), Rosalinda Gioia (Yordas Group), Danail Hristozov (GreenDecision)

Time: 8:30—17:30
Room: TBD
Course level: Introductory

Mesocosm studies are the highest experimental tier in the risk assessment for aquatic primary producers and invertebrates for plant protection products, whilst they are also considered in EU biocide and REACH guidelines. Thus, they are often referred to in dossiers or reports, but many people might not have seen such test systems, the sampling methods and the organisms living in such model ecosystems. This short course offers a visit to a GLP-regulatory mesocosm field site in Aachen, less than 40 km away from Maastricht. The course will include short presentations on the regulatory background of micro- and mesocosm studies, the different types of systems which are used, the test designs and sampling methods and finally how the data are used to derive Regulatory Acceptable Concentrations and used in risk assessment. However, the focus of the course will be on the practical demonstrations. Therefore, after the lunch break, the mesocosms will be visited and test item application and sampling methods for water, algae, macrophytes, zooplankton, and macroinvertebrates will be demonstrated. In addition, plankton and macro-organisms will be shown under binoculars or microscopes. Strengths and weaknesses of such studies will be discussed with the course participants

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

The objective of the course is to make risk assessors, either from regulatory authorities or industry, more familiar with such test systems, the organisms which can be assessed and the methods for application of test items, measurements and samplings and evaluation of data.

Target Audience

Ecotoxicologists or risk assessors, either from industry or regulation, who might work with mesocosm study reports or are generally interested in such community-level studies 

Instructors

Udo Hommen (Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME)), Tido Strauss (gaiac Research Institute), Silke Classen (gaiac Research Institute), Seamus Taylor (Adama)

Time: 8:30—17:30
Room: TBD
Course level: Introductory

Mechanistic effect models (MEMs) examine how chemicals impact individuals and ecological systems, including populations and communities. Their potential to support environmental risk assessment (ERA) and management is increasingly recognized, and significant experience has been gained in their application in recent years.
This training course introduces the main principles of effect modelling, model development, documentation and evaluation, important terminology and good modelling practice. It particularly addresses the state-of-the-art of effect modelling in the context of ERA of chemicals. Specifically, it focuses on organism-based models (TK-TD) and population models, including their particular use for ERA. The participants can expect a combination of introductory presentations, example case-studies which demonstrate the applicability of effect modelling in ERA, hands-on experience with model application and Q & A sessions.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

The aim is to introduce the participants to the world of mechanistic effect modelling and its applications in environmental risk assessments. The participants will learn about the basics of effect modelling to better understand its potential and gain first insights into model development, documentation, evaluation and application. They will get first-hand experience on different models by exploring simple example cases and have the opportunity for questions and discussions.

Target Audience

This course is targeted at participants who are interested in a general introduction to mechanistic effect modelling and a first overview of how it can be used in the context of ERA. It is open to participants from any scientific background with an interest in applying effect modelling in the context of ecotoxicology. This includes students as well as professionals working in government agencies, industry, academia or NGOs who have little to no experience in this field.

Instructors

Oliver Jakoby (RIFCON GmbH), Judith Klein (Fraunhofer IME), Andreas Focks (Osnabrück University), Amelie Schmolke (RIFCON GmbH)

Time: 8:30—17:30
Room: TBD
Course level: Advanced

The open source statistical environment R is an extremely powerful and versatile statistical environment. Over the last two decades, there has been an amazing development in terms of added capabilities through extension packages, making it the preferred data analytic toolbox of statisticians and researchers in many applied sciences. Moreover, it encourages collaborative and reproducible research. It has become much easier to R since RStudio was introduced. RStudio is an integrated environment for R with a powerful syntax-highlighting editor and many other features, including integration of the R Markdown language, which has dramatically changed how R may interface with other languages and systems, allowing results from statistical analyses to be conveniently output in formats such as PDF, HTML, or MS Word. Many recent advances in statistical approaches and techniques are only implemented in R or implemented to a larger extent in R compared to competing statistical software. This is in particular true when it comes to some statistical approaches commonly used in ecotoxicology (e.g., dose-response analysis).

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

In this short course, the primary focus will be on giving the participants practical hands-on experience and insights on using R for analyzing ecotoxicological data. Relevant recent statistical methodological advances and concepts will be touched upon. Specifically, analysis of variance and linear regression will be briefly revisited before introducing extensions to censored data and nonlinear regression and more general dose-response analysis, logistic and Poisson regression models, as well as linear, logistic and nonlinear mixed-effects models. More advanced concepts such as robust standard errors, single-step multiplicity adjustments, benchmark dose estimation, and species sensitivity distributions will also be discussed, if time permits.

Target Audience

The course is intended for PhD students as well as senior researchers and scientists in ecotoxicology and environmental sciences. An elementary understanding of statistical concepts is a prerequisite.

Instructors

Christian Ritz (University of Southern Denmark (SDU)), Signe M. Jensen (University of Copenhagen)