15 PhD Positions, ‘Natural Toxins and Drinking Water Quality – From Source to Tap’ (NaToxAq), Europe (2017)

‘Natural Toxins and Drinking Water Quality – From Source to Tap’ (NaToxAq) is a multidisciplinary European Training Network (ETN) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 722493. It comprises 21 leading universities, research institutions/agencies, and water enterprises in 7 European countries, which aim to expand insight on natural toxin identity, analysis, fate, dissipation, removal during water treatment, health effects, and risk assessment under impact of climate change, to ensure safe and healthy waters for European consumers.

Plants, fungi and aquatic organisms can contaminate drinking water resources with hazardous toxins. Although of natural origin, the contamination is often anthropically triggered or accelerated, and under strong impact of climate change. NaToxAq will build an international training network facing these challenges of natural contamination. The network offers fully-funded to train 15 Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs, PhD level) to take on these almost unexplored challenges calling for concerted action. Through their work, these ESRs will bring innovative solutions for safe water supply by creating models for predicting natural toxin loads and mitigation strategies on a catchment scale. These new insights will strengthen European policies, regulation of drinking water, and collaboration between academia and industrial/public enterprises also stimulating business potentials within the fields of water supply, monitoring and risk modelling. The NaToxAq network will be the first of its kind and thus has a marked potential to set standards within the field.

Further details:
http://www.nature.com