Prof. Petr Klán Received the 2025 European Ambassador of Photochemistry Award
Prof. Klán, head of the Laboratory of Organic Photochemistry, received the award at the 30th IUPAC symposium on Photochemistry in Zagreb.
SPRINT Project Delivers Landmark Insights into Pesticides and Their Impacts
The five-and-a-half-year European project SPRINT (Sustainable Plant Protection Transition) is now concluding its activities, bringing exceptionally extensive insights into the occurrence of pesticides, their pathways, and their impacts on the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems. According to the European Commission, the project has delivered “outstanding results with significant immediate or potential impact.” SPRINT involved 29 institutions from Europe and Argentina, with the goal of providing scientific foundations for a transition toward more sustainable plant protection approaches in line with the One Health concept.
Researchers from RECETOX played a major role in nearly all key project activities and coordinated one of the nine work packages. Our scientists contributed to field sampling and the collection of human and animal samples as part of a large-scale campaign in 2021, analyzed pesticide residues in hundreds of soil, crop, and earthworm samples, tested the ecotoxicity of pesticide mixtures on soil organisms, assessed ecological risks, and modeled exposures across different environmental settings. RECETOX was also responsible for developing the SPRINT Toolbox, a new publicly accessible tool integrating mapping layers, models, and extensive databases focused on pesticides, their occurrence, and their impacts on human health and ecosystems. Released in February 2026, this tool is now available to scientists and decision-makers across Europe, enabling more accurate and integrated pesticide risk assessments.
RECETOX also played an important role in the part of the project dedicated to preparing transition strategies and recommendations for European policy. These recommendations are based on comprehensive data on pesticide residues in environmental and human samples, discussions with data users, and a systems-level view of agricultural practices. The documents highlight the need for profound changes in agricultural management, incentive mechanisms, and data availability for pesticide regulation, and propose pathways to reduce dependence on synthetic pesticides as part of a long-term transformation of European agricultural systems.
Another major outcome of the project is the development of a research agenda for future pesticide research, aiming to integrate approaches from environmental toxicology, epidemiology, exposure science, ecology, and socio-economic research into a unified framework. The agenda defines four priority areas: integrated assessment of pesticide impacts on human and ecosystem health; improvements in exposure measurement and monitoring methods; scaling up research findings to broader spatial levels; and the development of agroecological and social innovations that reduce reliance on pesticides.
Beyond scientific outputs and policy recommendations, the project also produced educational and outreach materials—including an animated film for children explaining how pesticides affect soil organisms. Numerous webinars, scientific publications, and fact sheets were created throughout the project, with RECETOX researchers making significant contributions.
Overall, SPRINT delivers a robust and multi-layered perspective on pesticide-related issues and offers tools and knowledge that will shape the European debate on sustainable plant protection for many years to come. RECETOX is a proud partner in this extensive effort, and its scientists have contributed to the availability of more accurate data, improved models, and a clearer vision of how to gradually reduce dependence on chemical pesticides while strengthening human and ecosystem health.
Learn more: https://sprint-h2020.eu/
