CHRONIC will develop 13 informed ERA professionals through a training programme that includes training-by-research, joint courses covering technical, scientific, ethical, and transferable skills and a cross-sectoral secondment program.

Through these vehicles, CHRONIC will:

  1. establish an overview of the importance of chronic low-dose effects for populations, communities and ecosystems, and develop tools and methods to assess impact of low chronic exposure across systems;
  2. train a new generation of interdisciplinary risk assessors in quantitative, mechanistically-based methods needed for a holistic understanding of cause and effect of multi-stressor exposures in our changing world, and
  3. provide ESRs with a broad perspective of their future career, and increased employability, by supporting them in developing skills to communicate to scientific, industry, regulators, NGO and the public.

Innovative Training Network of Early Stage Researchers (ESRs)

The consortium expertise will allow CHRONIC to set a benchmark in the European Higher Education Area as the first research training initiative in low chronic exposure impacts on behaviour, immune modulation and genotoxicity traits for different organisms (plants, invertebrates, vertebrates) and ecosystems (freshwater, sediment, soil). CHRONIC will develop 13 informed ERA professionals through a training program that includes training by-research, joint courses covering technical, scientific, ethical, and transferable skills and a cross-sectoral secondment program.

There are training programs for scientific and transferable skills for the ESRs as well as that there are conferences and project meetings. This enable ESRs to attain knowledge on other scientific work on test ecosystems and receive hands-on training on new research methods and also in regulatory frameworks by working with industry/governmental partner institutions (see Table 1).

Table 1: Main training elements, including Network-Wide Training Events, Conferences and Contribution of Beneficiaries and Partner Organisations

Main Training Elements (including Network Events & Conferences)Total
 ECTSProject Month
ReferenceScience-based Transferable skillsScientific meeting
1Training Event A
online, 6 days
Principles of RA and HA; merits and limitations for addressing low chronic exposure scenariosPersonal development planKick-off meeting with all ESRs46
2Training Event B
Wageningen, 6 days
Toxicokinetics of low chronic exposureEthical issues in science and businessState-of-the-art; ESRs present research plans412
3Training Event C
Aveiro, 5 days
Toxicodynamics of low chronic exposure scenariosESRs present Personal CDP; Plan publications318
4Training Event D
Aarhus, 5 days
Interactions of natural stressors with chemical stressorsMidterm reflection on personal developmentMid-term progress review; Brainstorm on potential spin-offs 424
5Training Event E
Roskilde, 5 days
Effective communication of science to different audiences, including framing theoriesMeet & greet with mentors and different stakeholders (e.g., industry, policymakers) 330
6Training Event F
Cambridge, 5 day
Skills for career developmentNew grants and prospects for future collaboration;336
7Final Workshop
To be determined, 4 days
Use science- and transferable acquainted for collaboration and cooperation under pressure to write cross-cutting paper & final reflection on personal developmentFinalize strategy for post-project follow-up and exploitation/ SETACN/A42

 All partners involved in the Training Events participate in the Scientific meetings. The scientific meeting will have a duration of 1 day each.

Additionally, all ESRs will have three visits/ secondments to consortium partners.