SETAC Europe 19th annual meeting, Gothenburg, Sweden: Next step towards fulfilling students’ needs

The SETAC Europe Student Advisory Council (SAC)¹ has represented student members (master, diploma or Ph.D.) throughout every level of SETAC since 2006 and provides additional advice, recommendations and new initiatives to the SETAC Europe Council. During this year’s SETAC Europe annual meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden, the SAC organized three student-oriented activities.

During lunchtime on Monday, students had the chance to make contact with senior scientists from all over Europe in a relaxed atmosphere. The approximately 50 participants enjoyed talking to experienced people from various fields and had the opportunity to continue developing their own network–not only with established scientists but also with other student members of SETAC. During the Career Talk session on Tuesday, Theo Brock (Alterra, Netherlands), Eamonn Farrelly (Syngenta, UK), Jörg Römbke (ECT, Germany) and Joke van Wensem (Soil Protection Technical Committee, Netherlands) gave an insight into their work on a day-to-day basis and how they developed their careers. They also provided useful information about what skills are crucial for their job, the career progression opportunities as well as chances and challenges that might be encountered within these fields.

During the regular SAC meeting, the student members were informed about the past and ongoing activities of their council. A short movie about the first Young Environmental Scientist Meeting (YES-Meeting) 2009 in Landau, Germany, gave insight into this special students-only congress organized by the SAC under the umbrella of SETAC Europe (for further information, including the movie, see http://yes.sac-online.eu; Bundschuh et al. 2009). Afterwards, five new council members were elected for a period of two years: Nika Galic, Claudia Mieiro, Stephanie Sdepanian, Dominic Kaiser and André Dabrunz. After being chair of the SAC for three years, Mirco Bundschuh handed his job over to Markus Brinkmann from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, who joined the SAC during the SETAC Europe 18th annual meeting in Warsaw. He developed the official webpage (http://www.sac-online.eu) and was involved in the organisation of the YES-Meeting by chairing a session. A number of students showed their interest in contributing to the work of the council as associated members, thereby proving that SETAC students recognize the SAC as an important institution. The meeting was closed by a vivid discussion on future activities – during upcoming annual meetings of SETAC Europe and beyond.