The 2016 event was a real success, it was held jointly with the Federal Contaminated Sites Workshop, which made it a pretty large event with around 600 delegates total. Even though people had signed up for either the federal annual event or the international sustainable remediation conference, they could attend any presentation, that generated a really nice cross-polination of profesionals from different backgrounds.
One of the new concepts at the conference were the discussion sessions. These were not platform presentations or panel discussions. A moderator would explain the topic of the discussion, and the attendees had to jump in and provide their thoughts and the discussion starts. Anybody could chime in. The first topic introduced was : How to drive research, innovation and sharing of information in the field of sustainable remediation. At first the room was silent. There were about 30-40 people in the room from different geographies, different backgrounds and different interests. It took a few minutes but then it took off. By the end we were all wishing we had more time!
Key take aways form that session:
The main obstacles were identified as: lack of communication between universities, funding agencies and private companies, lack of interest from consultants. The consequences of this lack of communication are that research that gets repeated, or innovative approaches do not get shared.
What can we do to improve things: educate people as to the benefits and opportunities created by research and innovation, find ways to connect environmental professionals with research communities/academics, and encourage companies to share data and results.