The project aimed to modernize of Toxicology and Ecotoxicology teaching in Europe and had several objectives: -develop and use innovative and free educational resources (online courses, interactive PBL) in order to develop high quality digital education - provide innovative content on current hot topics in the field of Toxicology/Ecotoxicology to fit with recent evolution of European Policy and with job market needs – stimulate interest of students for those fields and limit school dropout The project meets the needs of: - students by stimulating their interest, putting them back at the center of teaching through the use of active pedagogies adapted to digital practice to recreate interactions between students, between students and teachers, and by stimulating their motivation through playful approaches. - teachers by proposing stimulating online courses which can be integrated in their own courses, or by motivating them to design and create their own new innovative courses. - partners by modernizing part of their curricula. - stakeholders by developing student and lifelong learner competencies adapted to job market - European Commission by modifying curricula and developing courses adapted to the Green Deal.
The European Green Deal EU (Action Plan: 'Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil', 2021), calls for the EU to better monitor, prevent and remedy air, water, soil and consumer product pollutions. Toxicologists and ecotoxicologists are needed to fulfil the Action Plan objectives as it aims in particular to better evaluate toxicity of pollutants (especially emerging ones such as microplastics) but also complex mixtures, to develop innovative methods to evaluate toxicity, and to biomonitor our environment. Thus, the next decade will see an increasing demand for high-qualified toxicologists and ecotoxicologists, especially in Europe. However, Europe is facing an important shortage of experts in those domains. One of the main reasons to explain this shortage is the insufficient training opportunities in Europe to face the increasing job market demands. The other main reason is a lack of interest of students for those fields due inappropriate education systems in Europe (considered as "old-fashioned"). Thus, there is an urgent need to modernise European curricula and teaching methods in toxicology an ecotoxicology, which is totally in line with the proposals of the renewed EU agenda for higher education (2017).