International collaboration
3 October 2016
The LIFE SMART Waste project beneficiaries have been busy networking and engaging with a wide variety of organisations (including INTERPOL), individuals and related EU projects to raise awareness of the project’s goals, harness expertise and to seek partners for collaboration.
Project beneficiaries have been actively engaging with enforcement agencies, industry representatives, policy makers and legislators. To date, the project has achieved a presence at a range of national and international conferences, events, inter-agency meetings and workshops and this is creating opportunities for networking and ongoing collaboration. The project team is also reaching out to related LIFE+ and EU projects - including EFFACE, DOTCOM Waste, TECUM, and BLOCKWASTE – to seek synergies from networking, sharing information and, if possible, collaborative activity.
To advance international collaboration, the SEPA project team have been nurturing relations with INTERPOL. This follows the appointment of SEPA’s Calum MacDonald (Executive Director of Operations and the Project Executive for the LIFE SMART Waste Project Control Board) as Chairperson of INTERPOL’s Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Committee (ECEC) Advisory Board in November 2015 for a two year period. The ECEC is an ideal forum for developing international collaboration as it brings together senior officials and decision makers from all 190 INTERPOL member countries.
The SEPA project team have invested considerable time in forging a partnership with INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group (PCWG) which brings together specialized experts and criminal investigators from around the world as one of three working groups that supports the ECEC. Notably, SEPA hosted the 21st meeting of INTERPOL’s PCWG which convened in Glasgow (UK) with representatives from over 30 countries on 6-7 June 2016. Presentations and demonstrations of the LIFE SMART Waste project’s communications ‘Hub’ elicited positive feedback and the PCWG’s commitment to undertake complementary work alongside the project using the Hub.
International collaboration is at the heart of the LIFE SMART Waste project, making networking and engagement activity an essential, ongoing feature of the project. If you are aware of any possible opportunities for collaboration or dissemination in the UK, Europe or beyond, please e-mail the LIFE SMART Waste mailbox.
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