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GWRC members set up new collaboration projects

KWR coordinates microplastics theme

During a two-day workshop on 9 and 10 June 2015 at TZW in Karlsruhe, researchers from KWR and from other members of the Global Water Research Coalition (GWRC) agreed to collaborate on five chemical and microbiological research themes.

Participants from 8 countries

The workshop’s theme was the ‘Fate and occurrence of emerging contaminants and pathogens’. In attendance were more than 20 experts from the Water Research Commission (South Africa), PUB (Singapore), WRF and WERF (US), WRA (Australia), Veolia and SUEZ (France), CWN (Canada), STOWA and KWR (the Netherlands) and, of course, hosts TZW.

Collaboration is effective and cost-saving

Following presentations by all GWRC members on ongoing projects, new developments and knowledge needs, a series of discussion rounds produced a selection of research themes for which a collaborative approach within the GWRC framework could be fruitful. The themes selected were: microplastics, antibiotic resistance, risk assessment, microbial indicators and support for the standardisation of molecular methods. These themes are part of several of the ongoing research programmes of GWRC members, so that collaboration on them would be logical, effective and cost-saving. Leaders were named for each of the themes: KWR will be coordinating the microplastics theme with TZW.

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