Periodic Reporting for period 2 - R-Exposome Chair (R-Exposome Chair: Unlocking the potential of RECETOX in Exposome research)
Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-09-30
The main goal of the project is to develop new capacities for the Environmental Health research in CEE, namely at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic (CR), by establishing the excellent international scientist as a leader of new research programme of Environmental Health and the specific group of Envrionmental Epidemiology. The new research group focuses on interpretation of available regional data on the environmental exposures and their impacts on population health, and on development of new education programmes in the Environmental Health sciences, at all levels of the university education. Such a new research and education capacity supports the development of innovative approaches for an assessment of the potential causal associations between various exposures over a lifetime and the health effects to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of these associations.
The main objectives of the project are to recruit internationally recognized scientist and the transformational leader, establish and sustain the ERA Chair’s research group, contribute to transformation of the research, innovation, and study environment having an impact on the MU competitiveness, to improve of the international visibility and to increase volume of the research funding from the international and private resources and ensure the long-term sustainability of the established research programme.
The ERA Chair’s team, which is already complete, exploits and enhances the value of existing data resources including longitudinal data on outdoor and indoor pollution and contamination of consumer products and food chains available in the in-house databases, regional data on pollution sources, emission inventories, traffic, air quality, type of housing, socioeconomic status and behaviour of the local population, longitudinal data from the regional ELSPAC/CELSPAC cohorts, rich toxicological data resources, and high-quality data from the national health registers. Given the composition of the ERA Chair team and of the broader research programme of Environmental Health, the project enables to open new research avenues of RECETOX.
The main objectives of the project are to recruit internationally recognized scientist and the transformational leader, establish and sustain the ERA Chair’s research group, contribute to transformation of the research, innovation, and study environment having an impact on the MU competitiveness, to improve of the international visibility and to increase volume of the research funding from the international and private resources and ensure the long-term sustainability of the established research programme.
The ERA Chair’s team, which is already complete, exploits and enhances the value of existing data resources including longitudinal data on outdoor and indoor pollution and contamination of consumer products and food chains available in the in-house databases, regional data on pollution sources, emission inventories, traffic, air quality, type of housing, socioeconomic status and behaviour of the local population, longitudinal data from the regional ELSPAC/CELSPAC cohorts, rich toxicological data resources, and high-quality data from the national health registers. Given the composition of the ERA Chair team and of the broader research programme of Environmental Health, the project enables to open new research avenues of RECETOX.
In the RP1, the major efforts have been put into the WP1 – ERA Chair selection. This took almost a year and included both the hiring procedure and negotiating with ERA Chair, but also the negotiation with the EC and the PO about the final set-up of the project and the arrangements. The project succeeded in these actions and hired recognized scientists, who create the basis of the ERA Chair’s research group. The hiring process was realized according to international standards of recruitment of senior scientific leaders and with respect to The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The position was promoted and advertised internationally in top scientific journals, on specialized servers, national portals, on Euraxess portal and other relevant sources including the active approach of the Search Committee. The hiring process was realized in several steps, which also included the presentation of candidate’s research vision and proposal of internal and external collaborations.
The ERA Chair became the leader of the research programe Environmental Health and the head of the research group Environmental Epidemiology, in which we started to hire new members. The process was supported by HR department and the ERA Chair personally guaranteed the definition of positions to be hired and participated on the hiring process. So far, almost ten researchers were hired into the team, mostly at the level of the postdocs and PhD students.
The members of the ERA Chair team participate on teaching and development of relevant courses for RECETOX students and have already participated on the development of various research grants, both national and international. The ERA Chair team has contributed to new partnerships and actions, such as the participation of RECETOX on the realization of already running HAPIEE cohort.
In the second reporting period, the research group has been stabilized and we put lot of efforts into the development of internal and external research cooperations. Internally, the cooperation runs smoothly especially in the Research programme of Environmental Health and also with the research infrastructure of Population studies, which highly benefits from the presence of ERA Chairs research group. The external cooperation is being developed both nationally and internationally. Nationally, there is close cooperation with the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, Charles University, National Institute of Public Health and many others. Internationally, the cooperation is being developed within joint research projects, e.g. with Utrecht University, IS Global in Spain, UCL, and many others.
For now, the key achievements are:
- the formation of the research group,
- the research outcomes and publications,
- successful research applications and
- developed study courses.
The ERA Chair became the leader of the research programe Environmental Health and the head of the research group Environmental Epidemiology, in which we started to hire new members. The process was supported by HR department and the ERA Chair personally guaranteed the definition of positions to be hired and participated on the hiring process. So far, almost ten researchers were hired into the team, mostly at the level of the postdocs and PhD students.
The members of the ERA Chair team participate on teaching and development of relevant courses for RECETOX students and have already participated on the development of various research grants, both national and international. The ERA Chair team has contributed to new partnerships and actions, such as the participation of RECETOX on the realization of already running HAPIEE cohort.
In the second reporting period, the research group has been stabilized and we put lot of efforts into the development of internal and external research cooperations. Internally, the cooperation runs smoothly especially in the Research programme of Environmental Health and also with the research infrastructure of Population studies, which highly benefits from the presence of ERA Chairs research group. The external cooperation is being developed both nationally and internationally. Nationally, there is close cooperation with the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, Charles University, National Institute of Public Health and many others. Internationally, the cooperation is being developed within joint research projects, e.g. with Utrecht University, IS Global in Spain, UCL, and many others.
For now, the key achievements are:
- the formation of the research group,
- the research outcomes and publications,
- successful research applications and
- developed study courses.
R-Exposome Chair is a CSA project, and therefore, its main activities involve mainly capacity building - building the expertise in given area, and networking rather than research. Nevertheless, the research component is very important. The research activities of the ERA Chair group focus on investigation of the associations of environmental exposures with biomarkers, environmental exposures with health outcomes, biomarkers with health outcomes, and examination of the interplay (effect modifications) of various types of factors affecting health. The main datasets to be used for this work are existing data from CELSPAC population studies, existing (mainly externally routinely collected) geographically defined data and new data collections (HAPIEE, Young Adults, TNG). In addition to data available in the Czech Republic, ERA Chair researchers will use data from other countries, including those from the Central and Eastern Europe, to further increase knowledge base by evidence from the region, and available data from elsewhere for international comparative analyses. In terms of exposures, the specific areas for research activities will be defined by type of data available, such as demographic, social, economic, psychosocial and behavioural determinants of health, individual-level environmental exposures, including biomarkers of exposures and -omics measurements and geographical exposures and GIS data. All these activities will contribute to fill the gap in capacities for the exposome research at RECETOX and contribute to the development of this concept within the ERA.