Our sister project, PollinERA, has made a lot of progress over the past year. In its latest newsletter, the project reflects on key 2025 developments. Below is a selection of PollinERA updates that may be of particular interest.

The first PollinERA policy brief

PollinERA has published its first policy brief, titled “Reforming EU chemical risk assessment: from regulatory bottlenecks to systems solution”. The brief addresses one of the project’s core challenges, namely how environmental risks to pollinators are currently assessed.

Conventional risk assessment approaches often operate in isolation, fail to account for cumulative long-term impacts, and rely on simplified “safe/unsafe” categories. Our sister project’s policy brief advocates for a systems-first, tools-second approach. By prioritising simulation and systems understanding before the development of regulatory tools, this approach aims to deliver faster, cheaper, and more robust decision-making in Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA).

The policy brief is accompanied by a technical evidence document. Both publications are available via the Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal, where WildPosh also hosts a dedicated collection.

The brief was developed by PollinERA’s coordinator, Christopher John Topping, together with consortium members Noa Simon Delso, James Henty Williams, and Johan Axelman.

Pollinator Survival Modelling and Parameter Estimation workshop

PollinERA organised a two-day hybrid workshop on Pollinator Survival Modelling and Parameter Estimation that brought together more than 50 participants from research institutions, industry, and regulatory bodies.

The workshop focused on the General Unified Threshold models for Survival (GUTS) and its extension, BufferGUTS, providing a hands-on introduction to Toxicokinetic-Toxicodynamic (TK/TD) models and their application in Environmental Risk Assessment. 

New social media campaigns

Over the past year, PollinERA launched three social media campaigns to make its work more visible and accessible:

• Faces of PollinERA, which introduces the people behind the project and showcases the range of expertise within the consortium.

• PollinERA species that presents the pollinator species at the centre of the project’s research.

• Explaining PollinERA, an ongoing campaign that breaks down complex concepts within the project. The first two episodes are now available on PollinERA’s YouTube channel.

Pollinator project synergies 

Our sister project continued to strengthen collaboration with other pollinator-focused initiatives, including WildPosh, MAMBO, and BeeLife. These synergies support knowledge exchange and increase the impact of research. As part of this collaboration, the WildPosh animated introductory video was featured in PollinERA’s newsletter.

Participation in events

During 2025, PollinERA was represented at 11 international events across Europe and the United States, including Horizon Europe projects’ annual meetings and kick-offs. Some important events include the Student Conference on Conservation Science, Ento25, and Entomology 2025, providing the project with the chance to contribute to scientific and policy discussions around pollinator protection.

We congratulate PollinERA on these developments and cannot wait to discover new synergy opportunities in 2026.