Dear readers,

with this fifth and final newsletter, we take the opportunity to bring you a little closer to the feeling that permeates us because the project is nearing its end.

Namely, our joint Danube Hazard m3c journey, which started in July 2020, has almost come to an end. It is an extraordinary feeling when you travel with many people, over one hundred specialists, from 13 different countries, and different cultures, through the world of science, profession, and policy. You travel and realize that in reality there are no borders on our way. “Science without Borders” came to the fore this time too. We all started from different positions in terms of knowledge, expertise, and opinions, with partners coming from the EU member countries and from countries that are in the EU accession phase.

At the beginning, we had to face many challenges, but gradually we managed to overcome them making way for new ideas and solutions. Strong partnership (in terms of program development, knowledge and skills) helped the members with less experience to develop and to become strong parts of the national teams. And we thank them immensely for that.

All partners tried to make the best use of the opportunity to master new knowledge and expertise both through developing jointly efficient monitoring and inventory approaches and acquainting modelling skills to effectively manage water pollution in the future. Whether to monitor priority substances during the transfer of pollution or to take care of the source first and deal with it. Which approach to take? Is it necessary to research all priority substances or to choose certain specific markers? What about the finances for monitoring realization?  What about inventories? Legislation? Many questions that were nurturing us and we needed answers to. Have we found them?

The most important finding was that we cannot tackle those challenges in isolation, without transnational teamwork. And we were a team from the beginning to the end of the project. We became friends with the need and desire to continue our professional, scientific and human fellowship in the service of environmental protection, especially of that element which means life for nature and for humans, which is "water". Water protection and human protection.

How far have we come? Have we achieved our goals? What are the remaining challenges? You can find all that in this latest newsletter.

Thank you for your trust and for following us.

on behalf of the Danube Hazard m3c project team

 colleagues from the Center for Ecotoxicological Research Podgorica (CETI)

To read our final newsletter presenting the project main achievements and outputs produced please follow this link.