Celebrating six years of PREMIER: Final Event and General Assembly in Cambridge

This June the PREMIER consortium gathered in Cambridge, UK for its final public event, alongside the project’s last General Assembly Meeting. Together, this marked the close of six years of collaborative work on pharmaceuticals in the environment (PiE), bringing partners and stakeholders together to reflect on results and discuss what comes next.

Presenting the science and tools behind PREMIER

The final public event brought together almost 100 key stakeholders across academia and industry alongside regulatory agencies and water managers to learn about key PREMIER outputs. The event opened with an overview of the scientific work underpinning PREMIER, covering key areas such as monitoring, environmental fate, exposure and effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment. These sessions set the context for the project’s main outputs, developed to support more consistent and transparent approaches to monitor and assess the effect of pharmaceuticals in the environment.

Across presentations and demonstrations, partners introduced tools and methods including ePiE, EcoDrug+, the fish decision tree, approaches for active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) prioritisation, and the PREMIER Digital Assessment System (DAS). Together, these outputs aim to facilitate access to data and support decision-making across the PiE landscape.

From results to application

A central part of the programme was dedicated to hands-on engagement. Four parallel workshops gave participants the opportunity to explore key PREMIER tools in practice, focusing on ePiE, the PREMIER DAS, EcoDrug+ and prioritisation and assessment approaches. These sessions created space for discussion around usability, data needs and potential real-world applications.

The agenda also included a poster session and informal exchanges, allowing partners and stakeholders to connect directly and further explore the work developed during the project.