In November 2025, a workshop on the Planetary Boundary of Novel Entities was held at UFZ. Experts discussed challenges in assessing this complex boundary and identified key needs for clearer criteria, governance, monitoring, and communication. The workshop was accompanied by Bastian Worrmann and here is the result.
We are happy to share that Isaac Tanui successfully defended his PhD entitled “Occurrence and mixture risks of organic micropollutants in western Kenya water resources.”
His work focused on identifying organic micropollutants (OMPs) and assessing their mixture risks. This work improves our understanding of the potential ecological impacts of complex chemical contamination in Kenyan water bodies, including seasonal patterns and endocrine-disrupting compounds.
Very well done Isaac!!
What a wonderful recognition of his outstanding support for our doctoral students. Martin Krauss was recently awarded the UFZ Supervision Award. Well deserved Martin!
In September 2025 the "Global Seminar: Solutions for the ONE WORLD" was held with 30 international scientists in the field of chemical monitoring with a specific focus on the Global South and the establishment of a sustainable network to find solutions to pollution all over the world.
Annika Jahnke, Dana Kühnel and Christian Schmidt recently wrote a very interesting article on the Bertelsmann Stiftung's “transforming economies” blog entitled “Mehr als Müll: Warum Plastik auch zu Klimawandel und Artenverlust beiträgt” (only available in German).
In the large-scale P-LEACH project, experts from four research institutes of the Helmholtz Association have now precisely analysed the composition and concentrations of many different substances. The main focus was how the sun's UV radiation increases the release of chemicals.
