Resume of the Aveiro Meeting
The working group meeting started on the 8th of July 2024 in the beautiful city of Aveiro, with a reception of participants for the afternoon session. The 9th was a full day starting on the university campus. About 35 online participants joined the 30 at the venue.
The welcome reception started with Cláudia Passos (local organization), prof. Nigel Halford (Cost Action Chair) and Prof. Armando Silvestre (Chemistry Department – University of Aveiro). The program continued with a presentation of the top-5 videos for the Acryred Student Competition, after a previous jury selection, which counted 9 high-quality proposals, from Bachelor, Master, and PhD students.
Kenia Capdevila gave a speech on how to communicate with a non-expert audience, in the representation of The European Food Information Council (EuFIC), followed by an online presentation of Mark Lohmann from the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BFR), evaluating the consumer awareness to the thematic of Acrylamide. Later on, Prof. Manuel Coimbra, as President of the Thematic Panel on Additives and Contaminants in the food Chain of the Scientific Council of the Portuguese Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Economica (ASAE) presented a case study related to the content of acrylamide in products present on the Portuguese market. These 3 communications allowed a representative view of different European institutions that are alert to the theme of food safety, with special interest devoted to acrylamide, highlighting the theme supporting this Cost action.
Luísa Sal, as coordinator of the University Research Support Office, guided the audience through potential perspectives for future funding opportunities and led the discussion on the best practices to develop a competitive proposal. The interactive program continued with Prof. Isabel Ferreira (University of Porto) as moderator for the last topic on how to communicate to the public in general, and within the cost action groups. All presenters were invited to the session and the discussion with the audience was integrated.
The last point of the agenda considered the election of the best student video, which selected João Siopa, a PhD student from the Portuguese University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, as the winner. João will represent the Cost action in the upcoming conference “Acrylamide and process formed contaminants: a supply chain approach” to be held in 4-5 September in Brussels. The program ended with a group picture at the lovely venue of the green campus of University of Aveiro.
Thank you for participating!
