Engagement with stakeholders (WP4)

Throughout this phase of the project, we have maintained a continuous and intense interaction with different stakeholders.

We have organized a stakeholder meeting involving the head representatives of the National Norwegian Water Industry organization and Norwegian Farmer organization.

We participated in a national workshop on MPs organized by the Swedish water industry association, held in Malmø 7th November 2018. We contributed in delivering a perspective over MP research needs.

NIVA researchers have undertaken important interactions with stakeholders at European level. We were invited by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) to attend the workshop on the Restriction of Intentionally-Added Microplastics under REACH on the 30-31st May 2018. The plenary group received a presentation on the IMPASSE project. Within the meeting, we presented and participated in the discussion in the Agriculture sub-group, providing an overview on existing works related to MPs in agricultural systems.

Moreover, we are collaborating with the British Royal Society to prepare a synthesis document on MPs for policy makers in UK. This document will feed in to the UK Government Strategy on MPs and will be part of a broader initiative called Living Landscapes. Within this interactions we released phone interviews and provided written documentations and scientific review to the British Royal Society officers.

We have actively participated in the International Water Association (IWA) world congress in Tokyo in September 2018, where we organized two workshops on MPs (one as co-organizers and the second as main organizers and chairs (Through IMDEA team)). We presented our preliminary results and provided our perspective for the future and needs of research in this field.

In addition, we were invited to present the project and the preliminary results to European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform (ESPP). This organization brings together industry, R&D and regions/cities to promote sustainable management of phosphorus. The meeting included the organization members, invited experts and key stakeholders, and was conceived to enable a dialogue between scientists, industry and farmers at European level.

These are just a few of our on-going dialogues with stake holders.