The 23rd Biennial Conference EcoBalt 2023 in Tallinn, Estonia ^†

The 23rd biennial conference EcoBalt2023 took place in Tallinn, Estonia, continuing the tradition of international EcoBalt conferences in bringing together scientists, students, educators, regulators, and industry representatives from the Baltic States and nearby regions.

EcoBalt2023 served as a forum for environmental scientists, ecologists, analytical and organic chemists, material scientists, toxicologists, and risk assessors to discuss current topics related to the environment.

The conference topics included the following:

• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental toxicology
• Ecology
• Analytical chemistry
• Green and sustainable chemistry
• Implications and applications of nanomaterials

During two and a half days of the on-site event, nearly 200 participants from 21 countries (Figure 1) had a chance to listen to 59 talks from experts in their fields, as well as from early career researchers. In addition, 45 posters were presented during the conference.

The conference started with a welcome event and a special lecture by Dr. Priit Zingel from the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia. Dr. Zingel presented a captivating talk titled “The Challenge of Understanding—from Protozoa to Ecosystems”, encouraging the audience to ponder on how the surrounding nature exchanges, collects, and manages information—both at the ecosystem and cellular levels.

The first day of EcoBalt 2023 started off with a presentation by the first plenary speaker—Dr. Stephen Ellison—a Science Fellow at LGC, the UK National Measurement Laboratory for chemical and biological measurement. Dr. Ellison is an expert in statistics, measurement uncertainty, and reference material certification who has co-authored EURACHEM guides on measurement uncertainty, metrological traceability, and qualitative analysis. Dr. Ellison’s talk was titled “Sampling, Detection and Uncertainty in Environmental Analysis—Challenges and Solutions”. The plenary lecture was followed by parallel sessions of talks by experts in the field as well as early career researchers. The topics of the talks included data quality in environmental analysis, the effects of legacy and emerging chemicals (such as microplastics) on ecosystems and humans, and the water quality of Narva River, Lake Peipsi, and the Baltic Sea. The topic of micro- and nanoplastic effects on the environment and human health was also covered by Prof. Pu Chun Ke, the plenary speaker on the second day of EcoBalt 2023. Prof. Ke from the Nanomedicine Center of The Great Bay Area National Institute for Nanotechnology Innovation (Guangzhou, China) and Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) is an expert in nanomaterial–biomolecular interactions and his multidisciplinary research career has spanned over three continents and has been funded by NSF and EPA in the United States, CSIRO and CBNS in Australia, and NSFC and MOST in China.

The conference included special sessions organized and funded by the Estonian Society of Toxicology, project “NarBaltAware” implemented under the European Neighbourhood Instrument and co-financed by the European Union, and Erasmus Mundus master’s programme “Excellence in Analytical Chemistry (EACH)” (www.analyticalchemistry.eu, accessed on 20 November 2023) coordinated by the University of Tartu and Estonian Center of Analytical Chemistry. EcoBalt 2023 organizers also acknowledge conference supporters shown in Figure 2.

The session “Data Quality in Environmental Analysis” organized by the EACH program was part of the EACH mini-conference series “Data Quality in Analytical Chemistry” and additionally served as a “get-together event” for current EACH students and EACH alumni.