RESPONSE Workshop on Communicating Microplastics

Our partners at the coastal and marine Science Communication, Stakeholder Engagement, and Societal Impact (SCEI) research group at MaREI, UCC have concluded their first workshop which focused on ‘Communicating Microplastics - Identifying Inaccuracies, Barriers, and Best Practices With and For Researchers and Scientists’. This workshop brought together eight researchers and scientists from six research institutes participating in the RESPONSE project, providing perspectives from across five geographic regions in Europe. The aim of this workshop was to discuss the issues relating to the communication of science in the public domain, focusing in particular on issues such as greenwashing and misinformation around microplastics and their associated impacts. A further workshop will take place in June which focuses on gathering the perspectives and experiences of policy and decisions makers. The results of both workshops will be included in a forthcoming report.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the following institutes for their participation in this event:

• ECOSPHERE research group at the University Of Antwerp 

• Aquatic Ecology and Toxicology, University of Heidelberg 

• Department of Life and Environmental Science, Polytechnic University of Marche 

• Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo 

• ECOTOX, Ecotoxicology and Marine Chemical Pollution, research team at the University of Vigo 

• School of Science and Technology, Örebro University