CHRONIC aims at delivering a cohort of highly-skilled and informed future research leaders trained in understanding and integrating, into risk-assessment practice, the long-term, low-dose chronic chemical exposure and their interactions with other environmental stressors. CHRONIC research will support improved decision-making in risk assessment based on uncertain and potentially conflicting information, and in the development of scientifically-based monitoring strategies. The focus on low chronic exposure to contaminants in different environmental organisms (macrophytes, invertebrates, vertebrates) and end-of-line systems (freshwater, sediment, soil) allow for a training that is broader than that achieved from conventional narrower one-system concept generally included in PhD-programmes and in standard protection goals. Thus, CHRONIC represents a paradigm shift in ERA methods and practices needed to deal with current and future contaminant challenges. CHRONIC will include 13 PhD projects aimed at developing tools and approaches to identify relevant nonstandard modes of toxicity for low chronic chemical exposure and integrate these with environmental stressors. CHRONIC includes academic institutions, research centres, government institutions, SMEs, and an NGO all with extensive experience in education and training and a high state-of-the-art scientific and technical expertise and infrastructure. The program will therefore lay the basis for an integrated approach to environmental risk assessment that includes non-standard yet ecologically relevant endpoints and low chronic exposure as key elements. CHRONIC include training-by-research, joint courses covering technical, scientific, ethical, and transferable skills. Students will also engage actively in communication to scientific and public communities and be enrolled in an ambitious intersectional networking exchange plan to increase employability and provide a broad perspective to their future career plan.

C-H activation is one of the most rapidly expanding areas of molecular chemistry and has emerged as an increasingly viable tool. Despite clear benefits offered by the C-H activation for sustainable and eco-responsible synthesis, its industrial applications are scarce. The lack of its widespread implementation in the industrial sector is due to multiple factors, amongst which the major reasons are a) the limited interactions between academia and industrial practitioners, and b) a limited number of young scientists with a strong expertise in the domain. CHAIR is aimed to specifically address these issues. CHAIR represents a unique European Research Network, combining nine renowned academic research groups and six industrial partners, strongly motivated to settle a solid basement for profound embedment of the C-H activation in an industrial environment. To achieve this ambitious goal 15 ESRs and 15 advanced scientists will be mobilized to implement direct C-H functionalization in industry, including both lead development and process chemistry. Fundamental research projects will be conducted to showcase the potential of the C-H activation to 1) speed up lead-to-hit optimization in pharmaceutical industries; 2) rapidly access molecular diversity; 3) assemble advanced materials; 4) convert raw materials into valuable building blocks; 5) bring new techniques to easily implement C-H activation based protocols for large-scale production. Development of these projects, combined with the scientific training and close collaborations within the CHAIR consortiums through specific secondments will provide 15 ESRs with unique competences in this edge-cutting field. Trainings on personal development, career development and societal/business aspects will complement their unique education, providing them with far-reaching and complementary competences to become future key actors of chemical industries in charge of the modernization of chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Some of the most acute challenges that the world faces are caused by insects and mites that seriously threaten human health and food security. Their control is primarily achieved by the use of insecticides: e.g., malaria prevalence has halved since 2000, saving 660 million lives, with 80% of the reduction being attributable to the use of insecticides. However, both limited availability of low risk insecticides (“insecticides that only fight the bad bugs’) and insecticide resistance represent major threats. So, there is an urgent need to develop novel, safe insecticides. Earlier research pointed to a discriminatory role for the enzyme cytochrome P450 (CYP) in the sensitivity to insecticides. CypTox will exploit the CYP metabolic/detoxification pathway of target and non-target organisms, to develop insecticides, efficient against selected insect & mite major pests and vectors, but highly selective and safe for mammals, pollinators and the environment. Outcomes will also include significantly beyond the state of the art biotechnology platforms (high-throughput cell/enzyme- screening assays and in silico pipelines), that will advance research capabilities for future developments of low risk insecticides. CypTox will provide excellent research training within a creative and flexible environment that actively promotes the integration of academic rigor and commercial pragmatism through mobility between sectors and focused training events. The size and balance of a highly motivated consortium (6 AC/6 industrial–of which 3 SME & 3 TC; 300 well distributed secondments), the involvement of experienced PIs in Horizon2020 and ERC projects and the modern communication, dissemination and exploitation approaches will ensure efficient implementation and impact, at several levels. Enhanced career perspectives for scientists and researchers will be achieved by building a sustainable multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral network, integrating world leading researchers and stakeholders.

In ARISTO (the European Industry - Academia Network for RevIsing and Advancing the Assessment of the Soil Microbial TOxicity of Pesticides), leading universities and industrial partners join forces to perform a cutting edge research and doctorate training programme tackling the global challenge of minimising the environmental off-target effects of pesticides. The multi-sectoral approach of ARISTO, interlinking disciplines from soil microbiology, microbial ecology, environmental chemistry and risk assessment, will generate the new generation of Microbial Ecotoxicologists specialized in pesticides-soil microbes interactions. The research challenge of ARISTO is to produce benchmarking knowledge supporting the development of advanced tools and procedures, based on the response of key microbial indicator groups like ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOM) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), for the comprehensive assessment of the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms. ARISTO offers doctorate fellows a challenging training programme build along 5 research objectives: (1) to develop pioneering in vitro tests, as a first conservative step, to assess the toxicity of pesticides on distinct AOM (ESR1) and AMF (ESR2) strains (2) to develop advanced experimental lab and field tests to assess the toxicity of pesticides on natural soil assemblages of AOM (ESR3) and AMF (ESR4), as a more realistic toxicity assessment step (3) to develop an ecosystem-level toxicity assessment: identify the response of soil microbial networks to pesticides (ESR5) and explore the impact of pesticides on microorganisms from different trophic-levels within the soil food-web (predator - prey) (ESR6) (4) to develop novel tools and procedures to determine the soil microbial toxicity of pesticide mixtures (ESR7) and biopesticides (ESR8) (5) to develop & validate advanced in silico tools for prioritizing transformation products (TPs) of pesticides with potential toxicity to soil microbes (ESR9)