The 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Summer School on Analytical Methodologies for Determination of CECs in the Environment (hereafter the School) will be held at Faculty of Technology Novi Sad (TFNS) in the period 2-6 July 2023, within the TwiNSol-CECs project (101059867).
After the closing of the original Call for Expression of Interest to Attend the 1st TwiNSol-CECs Summer School (hereafter the original Call), that was followed by the evaluation and ranking of the applicants, and finally by the collection of Letters of Intent from the selected applicants till May 11, one vacancy arose after the withdrawal of one selected applicant from Western Balkan Country.
In order to gather as many applicants as possible in accordance with the planned budget for the grants and in this way to have succesful realization of the event as well as succesful knoweldge dissemination and promotion of the project itself, the Organizing Committee decided (link) to announce the Supplementary Call for One Grantholder from Western Balkan Country to attend the 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Summer School (hereafter: Supplementary Call), with the same application procedure and conditions for the evaluation as the original Call.
The documents used for submitted applications’ scoring are:
- CV (formatted as EUROPASS CV), and
- a Letter of Motivation as a one-page-long letter that explains the candidates professional interests and achievements, particularly those referring to the subject of the School and the criteria for the application scoring, as well as the expected outcomes of the School with reference to the applicant’s career and how she/he will make use of the information received during the School (why attendance to the School is important for the (academic) career).
Specificity of this Supplementary Call is that only one applicant will be chosen, preferably from Western Balkan Country other than Serbia. Eventually if only an applicant from Serbia, living at least 80 km away from Novi Sad, sends the application, this application will be also eligible for evaluation against the criteria as described in the original Call. As soon as the first application reaches the Organizing Committee, it will be forwarded to the Committee for Summer School Grant Approval for the evaluation, and if it will be positively evaluated against the criteria defined by the original Call, the Organizing Committee will close the Supplementary Call. In case of simultaneous applications, the Committee for Summer School Grant Approval will evaluate all received applications to the Supplementary Call, and the one with the highest score will be selected, while all the applicants will be informed on the preliminary results. The deadline for non-selected candidates’ appeals is 7 days after the preliminary list or shorter (if the School starts in less than 10 days after the preliminary list), which will be delineated in the email sent to the applicants with the preliminary list. Appeals will be evaluated by the Committee for Summer School Grant Approval, and the final list will be formed and sent to the Supplementary Call applicants. Afterwards, the selected applicant should send a Letter of Intent as soon as possible after the final list.
The applications to the Supplementary Call should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as soon as possible and they should follow conditions explained in the original Call and related DOCUMENT ON PROCEDURES FOR SELECTION OF ATTENDEES TO 1 ^st TwiNSol-CECs SUMMER SCHOOL AND THE SCHOOL GRANTS AWARDING.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EU executive agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Last updated - 5 May 2023

It is a pleasure for the TwiNSol-CECs team from the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technology Novi Sad to announce and host the 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Summer School on Analytical Methodologies for Determination of CECs in the Environment (hereafter the School) that will be held at Faculty of Technology Novi Sad (TFNS) 2-6 July 2023.

Main topics of the School are:

• Water stressors and challenges in front of global water resources
• Micropollutants in water resources
• Compounds of emerging concern (CECs)
• A regulatory perspective on CECs
• Sampling and analytical approaches for determination of the CECs environmental occurrence
• suspect and non-target analysis including the use of the compound discoverer.

There are also parallel topics important for creation of international research projects and multidisciplinary research teams on the latest challenges in front of the transition towards a toxic free environment:

• Experience in the Horizon Europe project – how to prepare a successful project proposal
• Life Cycle Assessment: the most inclusive method to analyze environmental benefits and trade-offs resulting from complex systems

The draft Program of the School, consisting of 5 days of theoretical and practical sessions, is available here, while final Program will be published on the project website in due course:
www.twinsol-cecs.com

The lectures will be delivered by TwiNSol-CECs researchers from the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and TFNS, while laboratory support will be given by the TFNS researchers. The official language is English.

TwiNSol-CECs Summer School is open to PhD students and early-stage researchers not just from TFNS, but also from University of Novi Sad (UNS), other higher education and research institutions from Serbia, as well as from WB countries, in order to accomplish positive impact on rising institutional, national, and regional excellence in the field of the CECs’ surveillance. Additionally, in a very limited number, schools’ attendees may also be professionals working in companies engaged in the environmental monitoring and protection.

Due to constrains in available premises during the School, limited number of trainees will be possible to attend the practical exercises and be included in the social activities, so the applications (consisted of motivation letters and the achievements presented in the CVs in the field of interest for 1^st Summer School) sent to the Organizing Committee in accordance to the conditions of the Call for expression of interest to attend the School will be evaluated by the Committee for Summer School Grant Approval (hereafter the Committee) as explained here.

The Committee will select among the candidates with timely submitted and complete applications up to 5 grantholders from Serbia (whose place of residence is more than 80 km from Novi Sad), and 5 from Western Balkan region in accordance to the Call conditions. Description of the Grant and the conditions of its usage is given in the Call.
Additionally, 3 best ranked applicants from TFNS and/or UNS will be also selected to participate in the School.

For the limited number of trainees that are going to be selected by the Committee all the sessions of the School are open, including the School practical sessions and the social activities, while only theoretical lectures (but not practical and societal sessions, including coffee and lunch breaks) will be opened for the TFNS/UNS researchers without the applications.

Those interested to participate in 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Summer School are kindly invited to send the applications following the Call conditions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. till April 20, 2023  28 April 2023. (New deadline)
Information on the application evaluation will be sent in accordance to the timetable given in the Call.

We are confident that the program of the 1st TwiNSol-CECs Summer School will provide valuable information on the CECs occurrence and the relevant analytical approaches, but also a great mix of ideas, societal activities, and people, contributing to the spreading of knowledge important for transition towards zero-pollution, toxic-free environment.

Looking forward to receiving your expression of interest to participate in the 1st Summer School within the TwiNSol-CECs project,

The Organizing Team

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EU executive agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technology Novi Sad, Serbia
27 December 2022

Prof. Nataša Đurišić-Mladenović, project coordinator, presented TwiNSol-CECs project to the group of TFNS students, who had an assignment to prepare the project proposals within the course Environmental Protection in Food Industry. The goals of the presentation were to:

• Explain the importance of project-based research work within the largest European program for research and innovation – HORIZON EUROPE, and
• Present the HORIZON EUROPE Twinning project TwiNSol-CECs, its objective, structure, consortium, and expected impact

TwiNSol-CECs Project Presentation to TFNS Students

Reports on TwiNSol-CECs Week events published
First onsite project events organized from 17 to 21 October 2022 were successfully ended.
During the whole week in October, TFNS acted as a forum for knowledge and research ideas exchange along with prestigious researchers from EU and Western Balkan countries:

• working meetings were held on 17 and 18 Oct 2022, when the senior TFNS team members together with Dr. Marinella Fare, Dr. Sandra Perez, and Dr. Marta Llorca from CSIC, and Prof. Dr. Joao Crespo from UNL, discussed project activities planned for the first project year.
• 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Training is successfully finished. The CSIC team members led by Dr. Marinella Farre, presented the latest trends of sampling, sample preparation techniques and sample preservation, extraction of CECs from different samples, and targeted analysis of CECs, to the TFNS team members.
• TwiNSol-CECs kick-off meeting, representing also the first public project event, was organized on October 19, 2022 at TFNS. Project consortium and the work plan were presented during the open session, while the close session and the official lunch were organized for the project team members.
• 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Workshop was organized on 20-21 Oct 2022, gathering researchers from EU and WBs. Opening and plenary lecture sessions were jointly organized with 2^nd ICAPP Conference in Rectorate building, reaching ~200 participants. The Workshop included scientific lectures, posters, networking, lunches, and coffee breaks.
• Within the framework of 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Workshop, 6 running Horizon Europe Twinning projects, dealing with the environmental pollution and climate change challenges, were presented. Networking and new opportunities were discussed in order to jointly raise scientific excellence of Serbian universities towards ERA top class institutions.

Additional information about these events could be found in the published reports on 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Training, Kick-off meeting, and 1^st TwiNSol-CECs Workshop

University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technology Novi Sad, Serbia
17-21 October 2022

We are delighted to announce that this October at TFNS will be full of international events organized under TwiNSol-CECs project (101059867), making TFNS a place of meeting with our colleagues from top-leading research partner institutions:

• Spanish National Research Council, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (CSIC), Spain, and
• NOVA University Lisbon, NOVA School of Science and Technology (UNL), Portugal, 

Firstly, the 1^st TwiNSol-CECs training entitled
Sample preparation and targeted analysis of main group of contaminants of emerging concern in complex samples will take place on October 17-18, 2022, with trainers from CSIC led by Dr. Marinella Farre. During the training session TFNS team members will have a chance to learn more about sampling, sample preparation, QA/QC, and target analysis of different CECs classes.