The NORMAN Network and its activities on emerging environmental substances with a focus on effect-directed analysis of complex environmental contamination

The need to look beyond the traditional target pollutants when assessing the hazards of chemicals to human health and to ecosystems is now generally recognised as a priority issue in all policy areas at the national, European and world level. “Emerging substances”, i.e. “substances of emerging concern”, are therefore a field of increasing interest in environmental research and monitoring.There are numerous target substances and it is impossible to develop the necessary knowledge and methodologies solely at the national scale.Moreover, regarding data quality and validation, in particular with respect to emerging pollutants, the lack of harmonisation in method validation and QA/QC requirements is a cause for concern over the reliability of analytical data.Finally, today we still lack the capacity for systematic early recognition of those substances that should be addressed as “relevant” emerging toxicants in a European context, as opposed to those ‘believed’ to be emerging.So, there is a need for an information exchange on emerging substances that is officially recognised by the authorities at the European level, and beyond, in order to advance knowledge of their impacts and to support decision-making.The NORMAN network ( http://www.norman-network.net webcite) was created in 2005 in response to a DG Research call for projects under the 6th Framework Programme. The aim of the project was to set up a permanent network of reference laboratories, research centres and related organisations in order to facilitate the exchange of information on emerging substances and to improve data quality and validation of measurement methods.In November 2008, when the European Commission (EC) contract and funding expired, NORMAN – consisting of 17 partners led by INERIS – was duly set up as a permanent, self-sustaining network (non-profit association) of reference laboratories, research centres and related organisations for the monitoring and bio-monitoring of emerging environmental subs