The EuroDean Environmental Reseakh Organization
By Alexander J. B. Zehnder The EERO is a nonprofit, nonpolitical organization created by prominent scientists concerned about the environment; it was created in 1987 and became operational in 1990. The members of EERO are prominent E u r o p scientists and persons with a s W g wmmiment to envim e n t a l science. EEROs primary goals are to promote high-caliber environmental science in Europe and to utilize intellectual and technological resources through internatid cooperation. The EERO, whose philosophy and smtegy are analogous to those of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), is not a grant agency that supplements existing national and European funding agencies. Rather, EERO seeks to promote the seeding of new interdisciplinary research groups in centers of excellence; to catalyze the evolution of new constellations of groups and research efforts; and to facilitate the rapid spread of new knowledge. The organization aims to achieve these goals through the following stages. In a fmt phase, EERO will award by open competition International Long Term Fellowships to outstanding young scientists on a postdoctoral level. Its International Short Term Fellowships will enable talented scientists to visit foreign laboratories to learn newly developed techniques or initiate a collaboration. The organization also will initiate advanced laboratoty cou~ses,workshops, and an annual symposium on topics, methodologies, and problems of current importance. 1294 Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 24, No. 9, 1990
In a second phase, the organization will create EERO training centers and a European Research Network. EERO also plans to establish expert committees that can advise relevant national and international bodies on different aspects of environmental policies. A possible though not presently essential development will be the creation of a European Laboratory for Environmental Research. Although it is generally appreciated that major advances are needed in a number of areas of environmental research, the EERO has decided to focus its initial efforts on chemical pollution. The specific themes to be emphasized are analytical methods; fate of toxic and polluting compounds, including physical transport mechanisms: effects on ecosystems and individual components; development of processes and technologies for the removal of toxic chemicals and pollutants; and identification of less toxic, readily degradable alternatives to current industrial chemicals. For its initial phase of five years, the organization has a budget of about 2.5 million ECU per year (1 European currency unit is about $1.30). EERO has obtained major contributions from the Volkswagen Foundation: the Committee EERO Netherlands, a consortium of Dutch minisaies, research agencies, and institutes: the Universities of Wageningen and Utrecht; the Dutch Agriculhual Corporate Organization, led by the RABO-Bank, the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. Discussions with ministries and agencies of other countries are in progress. The fmt fellowships will be awarded this fall. EERO’s yearly symposium took place in Braunschweig in April and dealt with environmental hiotechnology. Four workshops and one advanced course will be sponsored by the organization this year. Although for pragmatic reasons the EERO has developed as a E u r o p 01ganization, once it has become fvmly established it should seek to cooperate with similar organizations in the rest of the world and to form with them an international body that will focus on gobal issues.
Additional information on EERO can be obtained from its headquarters in Wageningen. The address is P.O.Box 191,6700 HB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
EERO Council 1990-199
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A.J.B. Zehnder. Chairman Wageningen Agricultural Unive 6703 CT Wageningen, The Netherlands K. N. Timmis, Past Chairman GBF-National Research Center Biotechnology 3300 Braunschweig, Federal Republic of Germany R. Hutter, Vice Chairman Swiss Federal Institute of Technology 8092 Zurich, Switzerland W. Verstraete, Secretary General State University of Ghent 9000 Ghent, Belgium J. Albaigbs, Treasurer Center for Investigations and Development-CSIC 08034 Barcelona, Spain 8. Allard Linkoping University 581-83 Linkoping, Sweden I. Bertini Laboratorio di Chimica 50121 Florence, Italy B. Dixon 130 Cornwall Road Ruislip Manor Middlesex HA46AW, U.K. C. J. Knowles University of Kent Canterbury Kent CT2 7NJ, U.K. B. Witholt Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 9747 AG Groningen The Netherlands
Alexander J. B. Zehnder is a member of the ES&T advisory board and chairman of the department of microbiology ar the Agricultural University of Wageningen, The Netherlands. His research interests are in environmental microbiology.
0013-936W90/0924-1294SM.5WOQ 1990 American Chemical Society
