A Year in the Life of a SETAC Europe President

Michelle Bloor, SETAC Europe President

Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase that means “wonderful year,” “marvellous year” or “year of miracles,” and it is the title of a poem by John Dryden, which was published in 1667. The poem commemorated 1665–1666, the “year of miracles” in London. Despite the poem’s name, the year had been one of great tragedy, including the Great Fire of London and the spread of The Plague, but Sir Isaac Newton also discovered gravity within this timeframe. The title of the poem was perhaps meant to suggest that the events of the year could have been worse.

As I reflect on my twelve months as SETAC Europe President, I think annus mirabilis encapsulates the experience. It has been a wonderful year and an honor and privilege to serve the society, which I have tried my upmost to do, to the best of my ability. It has also been a period of self-growth and reflection, and a year when I’ve started a new job at the University of Glasgow, five days into my presidency. It’s also been a year that saw six female-serving presidents at the global and geographic unit level, and in Europe, all the serving regional branch presidents were also women. I’m so proud to be part of this moment in SETAC history, which was made possible by all those women who came before us and who etched out our path. In September, during an extraordinary annual general assembly, SETAC Europe also made a historic change, an amendment to the constitution was approved that enables a student representative to be appointed to the SETAC Europe Council (SEC) as a voting member. Until that point, student representatives held a non-voting guest status on the SEC. Markus Schmitz was the first student to be elected to this role and he and several co-authors wrote a Globe article, which explains why this was such an important step for the society.

I wanted my presidency to provide a platform and visibility towards the key values of our society: Transparency, fairness, diversity, equity and inclusivity, in addition to promote and advance environmental sciences and the use of science in environmental policy and decision-making. During the past 12 months, the SEC has had the opportunity to explore these points during our governance activities. In fact, I think my most used phrases of the past 12 months are “One SETAC,” “How could this be perceived by the membership?” “We need to be transparent,” and “Is this inclusive?” These are, of course, important considerations; we don’t want to appear biased in our decision-making or actions, but neither do we want there to be a perception of bias. This highlights a recent discussion that we had in SEC in relation to SETAC Europe awards. Following swiftly on the heels of a recent SETAC World Council (SWC) motion and in a desire to take steps towards One SETAC, SEC established a new policy, which stops members serving on the SETAC Europe Awards Committee from being eligible to receive an award. Awards committee members can, of course, be nominated for an award during their committee term. The nominated committee member will be informed of the nomination, and they can either resign from the committee to have their nomination package evaluated, or they can put the nomination on hold, until their  term ends, and then their awards package will be evaluated. The purpose of this new policy is to avoid a conflict of interest and avoid the perception of bias.

In a similar way, the SEC has also established a standard operating procedure to ensure SETAC Europe has a robust, fair and transparent process in place to select SETAC Europe representatives and to establish sounding boards to support representatives. It’s very important to me that the membership understands that all members can get involved in all activities that SETAC offers and that everyone has the same opportunity to do so. You don’t need to know the right person or need to be in the right place at the right time. We need to ensure everything is accessible and visible to all members. Without that visibility, a negative underlying perception of bias or inaccessibility can form, which needs to be eradicated through total transparency.

The SETAC Europe Diversity and Inclusion Committee was established during the last year, and a fabulous chair, Mafalda Costa, and vice chair, Sabine Apitz, were appointed. The committee is composed of a very enthusiastic and motivated group of members who are assisting SEC with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) topics. DEI is very close to my heart, and as I mentioned in a recent Globe article that I wrote on this topic, my own demographic background might be considered privileged, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have hidden challenges, and we need to remember that everyone is an individual with their own story to tell and should be treated with dignity and respect. Leonie Muller, Dan Saunders, Lorraine Maltby and I are also exploring the possibilities for establishing an Affinity Group that will explore science and DEI themes, so watch this space for future updates on this.

I had the immense privilege of signing the incorporation documents for the International Board of Environmental Risk Assessors (IBERA) on behalf of SETAC Europe during my presidency, and I represented SETAC Europe and SETAC UK at the Burlington Consensus, organized by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra). This event was a science and policy call for setting up a global panel on chemicals, waste and pollution. The SEC also approved a motion for Bart Bosveld and me to send letters to Virginijus Sinkevičius, Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries at the European Commission, and Espen Barth Eide, Danish Minister of Climate and Environment, asking them to support the draft resolution to establish an Intergovernmental Science and Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution. SWC also sent letters of support to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that also outlined SETACs interest and willingness to collaborate with the intergovernmental panel, which I personally hope will be possible since the resolution was adopted during United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA5.2) on 2 March in Nairobi, Kenya. I’m sure further updates will follow on this topic, but if you would like to read more information, there was a recent SETAC Globe article written.

The SEC has also adopted a new internal process to ensure that the Executive Committee (ExCom) always has sectoral representation, which appears to have been missing on many occasions over the past 20 years. During our annual SEC election, sectoral balance is established. However, on many occasions, a government representative is missing from the ExCom that includes the executive director, treasurer, vice president, president and past president. This issue results from open vice president elections being held in SEC and fewer government members standing for the position. Consequently, a new protocol has been adopted, which means that if sectoral balance is missing from the ExCom, the SEC can appoint a member from the missing sector to join ExCom to ensure sectoral balance and cross-sector discussions. Similarly, this person would also join SWC meetings, as a guest, to ensure sectoral balance feeds up from Europe to the SWC.

I’ve led the strategic planning activities in SEC over the past two years, which is an unusual scenario. During my vice presidency, I led the creation of the 2021–2023 strategic plan. During my presidency, I was given the opportunity to lead the establishment of task forces to explore the strategic themes, prioritize the tasks and develop processes of how to achieve them. The task forces will of course continue their work over the coming years, but we’ve made good headway, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the strategic plan activities and achievements unfold over the coming years. Of course, as SETAC moves to embrace a One SETAC approach, which I personally think is a very nice initiative that is greatly overdue, priorities and strategic directions might well change.

The last face-to-face SEC meeting was January 2020, and I had hoped there would be a possibility of meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, in January 2022, but unfortunately this wasn’t possible. The SEC has always held three annual face-to-face meetings, and the remaining meetings were done through a virtual platform. Without the face-to-face meetings, the opportunities to undertake team building and side conversations were challenging. However, over the past year, I think the SEC has worked extremely efficiently, and I’m really pleased and proud of the work we have done. I would very much like to take this opportunity to thank SEC for their service to SETAC. I really wanted to close the gap between SEC, committees, regional branches, our representatives and sounding boards, so throughout the year, we have created a dialogue with all these groups, which I hope will be maintained moving forward.

I’ve also had the opportunity and privilege to attend many SETAC meetings, including the Europe and North America annual meetings, the Africa and Latin America biennial meetings, and the SETAC Russian Language Branch meeting in conjunction with the Siberian Federal University, as well as several UK meetings. Of course, I attended all these meetings virtually, from the comfort of my sofa, and I very much enjoyed the events and meeting the global SETAC family. I was also delighted to participate in the scientific organizing committee meetings for the SETAC Europe 32^nd Annual Meeting in Copenhagen and online, making this SETAC’s first hybrid meeting. I have always wanted to visit Copenhagen, so I’m very excited to be heading there in May. During the scientific organizing committee meetings, I was very struck by the care and consideration that was taken at every stage of the process. I’m sure you can appreciate that this is a mammoth task, the analogy I will give is that the process resembled a massive jigsaw, which included extra puzzle pieces of the wrong size and shape. However, the committee and staff worked diligently to ensure that the scientific structure of the meeting would work, the science being presented at the meeting would be robust, and everyone would find the program stimulating and generate a plethora of scientific discussion and reflection. I would like to thank our wonderful meeting chair, Nina Cedergreen, the organizing committee and SETAC staff, in addition to the meeting sponsors, session chairs, presenters and those who have registered to attend the meeting. I think it’s going to be a very good meeting!

One difficult challenge that we faced over the past year was the question of whether SETAC should apply sanctions or make a statement pertaining to the Ukraine crisis. We had such an emotional and reflective discussion on topics that seem so disconnected from our usual scientific discussions. From my side, I took the stance, as I have throughout my presidency, that my role isn’t to bias or sway the SEC’s judgement or opinion. I tried to create a safe space for open discussion, and I wanted everyone who felt able to join in the discussion to have an opportunity to do so. I was also very mindful that for some people, this might be a triggering topic and made it clear that those who didn’t want to participate did not need to read the email chain or engage. I was so grateful for the careful and mindful consideration that was taken by the SEC. The SEC discussions fed into SWC conversations and guided the direction of the SETAC statement “SETAC stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people.”

In addition to the points I have highlighted in this article, so many other SETAC Europe activities and initiatives have been developed or have taken place over the past year, including but not limited to SETAC Europe’s representation at the High Level Roundtable of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and the associated Sounding Board activities, so that the membership can feed their thoughts forward. SETAC Europe’s representation at the EFSA Stakeholder Forum, a SETAC Café to coincide with COP26 on Chemicals, Sustainability and SETAC Science, and SETAC Europe’s representation at SWC. SETAC Europe has four seats on SWC, which are currently held by SWC President Karel De Schamphelaere, SEC President Michelle Bloor, SEC Past President Thomas Benjamin Seiler and SEC Vice President Mirco Bundschuh. SETAC Europe tries to have a very active voice in SWC conversations, and certainly over the past year, I’ve personally taken part in many different SWC initiatives. I truly enjoy my work with my SWC colleagues, it’s very interesting to hear international thoughts, and to work with a wonderful group of active and dedicated SETAC members to develop new initiatives and try to enhance SETAC.  It was also a wonderful surprise in December 2021 to be granted a Presidential Citation for Exemplary Service by the outgoing SWC President Helena Cristina Silva de Assis.

I really want to thank everyone for supporting my SETAC Europe presidency and for providing me with the opportunity to serve the society that I love. I would also like to thank everyone who has served SETAC Europe over the past year in any shape or form. Without your support and motivation, SETAC Europe wouldn’t be the success that it is. I would also like to thank Bart Bosveld, SETAC Executive Director, and the SETAC office staff in Europe and North America, as without their dedication and hard work, SETAC Europe would be an acronym and not a family. Of course, SETAC is not perfect, and we still have much to do to make the society the best it can be. It’s a continuous cyclic process of feedback, reflection and modification, which needs the membership’s input. Without the membership’s willingness to serve the society and get involved with governance, the society wouldn’t exist. So, please know that everyone is welcome – anyone can get involved with SETAC activities, committees, interest groups and governance. If you’d like more details of how or what’s involved, I’d be happy to explain, or you can visit the website. I look forward to continuing my SETAC governance journey and my future endeavours with SETAC. See you in Copenhagen!

Author’s contact information: [email protected]