Geographic Units :: Europe :: Council

SETAC Europe Council Candidate

Trudi Crommentuijn

Professional Details

Country: The Netherlands
Affiliation: Government
Organisation: Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, Directorate Soil, Water and Rural Environment
Position: senior policy maker
To contact Trudi Crommentuijn , please e-mail to SETAC Europe and mention "to Trudi Crommentuijn" in the subject line.

Career

I have a Msc in Aquatic Ecology, aquatic ecotoxicology and environmental Sciences and a PhD in terrestrial Ecotoxicology. My PhD-research dealt with the sensitivity of terrestrial arthropods for Cadmium, Pentachlorophenol and chlorpyrifos. Before my PhD-research I have been working for a consultancy agency on aquatic ecotoxicology. After my PhD research I worked at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. My main tasks were the development of methods to be used in risk-assessment and developing proposals for quality objectives for water and soil. Since 1999 I have been working at the Ministry of
Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, first at the Soil department and since 2004 at the Water department. Part of my work consists of the coordination and steering of research on effects of chemicals on ecosystems and methods to evaluate them both for water and soil and the development and implementation of
quality objectives in Dutch Policy. I have participated in the steering committees of several international research-programmes funded by the European Commission and was the chair of the EU-CLARINET
working group on ecotoxicology. At this moment I am involved in the Expert Advisory Forum Priority Substances in the context of the daughter Directive on Priority Substances (Water-Framework Directive)..

SETAC Involvement

In the past I participated and have presented my work at several SETAC- Europe, America and World Conferences. I lectured in a short-course on terrestrial risk assessment at the 1995-Vancouver World Conference and the 1996-Washington America Conference. In 1998 I participated in a Pellston workshop on aquatic risk assessment in Bute. Besides that I have publications in the SETAC-journal and SETAC-books.

Motivation for standing for election

Since I have been working in the field of environmental sciences I have seen and worked on it from different points of view. I designed and performed research, I advised the government on its use for policy, I coordinated research needed for policy and used it for the implementation of environmental policy.

The most striking fact I learned when looking to environmental research from the different points of view, is that these different points of view are not always shared and/or understood by different stake-holders. Besides that it is not always an easy task to find a balance between the scientific value of research and its usefulness for policy in environmental research.

To my opinion the best way to deal with environmental problems is a science based policy in which the different point of views are incorporated in environmental research from the beginning to the end and taking care of the boundary conditions driven by its usefulness for policy. I think that SETAC is an ideal forum to promote and have discussions on the balance between scientific value and usefulness for policy and I would like to contribute to this by becoming a member of the SETAC-Europe council.