European analytical column no. 37 (January 2009) Division of Analytical Chemistry (DAC) of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS)

This issue of the European Analytical Column has again a somewhat different format: once more DAC invited a guest columnist to give his views on various matters related to Analytical Chemistry in Europe. This year, Professor Manfred Grasserbauer of the Vienna University of Technology focuses on current challenges for European analytical chemistry.

During the period 2002–2007 Professor Grasserbauer was Director of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Ispra. There is no doubt that many challenges exist at the present time for all of us representing a major branch of chemistry, namely analytical chemistry.

The global financial crisis is affecting all branches of chemistry, especially analytical chemistry since our discipline by tradition has many close links to industry. Already now a decrease of industrial commitment with respect to new research projects and sponsoring of conferences can be observed.

It is therefore important to strengthen all efforts and to keep the presence of analytical chemists at meetings and conferences unchanged. Recent activities of DAC and details regarding the major analytical-chemistry event this year in Europe, Euroanalysis XV in Innsbruck, Austria, are also reported.