Environmental Institute (EI) is an environmental management, research and consulting company, having its headquarters in Kos, Slovak Republic. EI’s experts participate in projects funded by national governments and/or institutions of the European Union, UNDP/GEF, World Bank, international river basin authorities, NATO and industries. Their expertise relates to integrated river basin management, marine environment, drafting of river basin management plans and implementation of related environmental policies, assessment of vulnerability of environmental resources and ecosystem-based adaptation measures in view of climate change, environmental monitoring and risk assessment, analytical chemistry, hydrobiology, aquatic ecology, ecotoxicology, data management and environmental technologies. EI is regularly coordinating large-scale environmental surveys, e.g. Joint Danube Survey 1-4 (ICPDR; 14 European countries and EU; 2001, 2007, 2013, 2019) and Joint Black Sea Surveys (2016, 2017, 2019) within the EU/UNDP EMBLAS-II, EMBLAS-Plus and EU4EMBLAS projects. Current research activities focus primarily on risk assessment of emerging substances in environment in support of the EU’s Chemicals Strategy. EI has participated in numerous EU-funded projects incl. AWACSS, TRAP-NAS, WARP, VIRM, WEKNOW (FP5), AQUATERRA, EAQC-WISE, SOCOPSE, NORMAN (FP6), AQUAREHAB, EDA-EMERGE, SOLUTIONS (FP7), ANSWER (H2020) and PRORISK (H2020). EI was a coordinator (2018-2022) of LIFE project - LIFE APEX ENV/SK/000355 - Systematic use of contaminant data from apex predators and their prey in chemicals management. Currently, EI is a coordinator of TerraChem project: From soils to apex species: chemical pathways, effects and impacts on terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services and applications for better chemicals management, project number: 101135483 (2023-2026).
EI was a member of the Management Committee within the EU COST projects ‘Sewage biomarker analysis for community health assessment’ (SCORE) and ‘New and emerging challenges and opportunities in wastewater reuse’ (NEREUS). In 2003, EI was appointed as one of the European Centres of Excellence in the drinking water sector and since 2006 provides as a consortium member technical assistance to the EC for the implementation of WFD in all EU Member States. In 2012, the support has been extended to the European Water Industry Directives (DWD, BWD and UWWTD) and other freshwater policies (incl. Floods Directive). EI is a founding member of the NORMAN Association dealing with emerging substances (more than 90 organisations in Europe, North America and Asia), being responsible i.a. for the design, maintenance and upgrade of the pan-European NORMAN Database System and related development of automated prioritisation and risk assessment tools.
EI has its own well-equipped laboratory, accredited according to ISO 17025 for a wide range of parameters, including GC-MS, comprehensive GCxGC-ECD-MS-MS, SBSE, on-line SPE and high-throughput robotic arm devices, with shared access to LC-HR-QTOF-MS, GC-HR-EI-QTOF-MS and GC-HR-APCI-MS. EI has an extensive experience with organisation of pan-European collaborative trials. EI is also responsible for hosting, development and maintenance of the NORMAN Database System.