Update 23-04-09

After two fruitful national ecogenomics days at the Trippenhuis Amsterdam, it's tempting to return to our desks or labs and continue with our work as usually. However, one message clearly expressed by the Scientific Advisory Board is that the Ecogenomics Consortium - being in its final phase - should focus on and invest in valorization, and especially societal valorization.

Examples of how this can be done include:

• follow-up meetings on the expert-meetings organized in 2008,
• co-authoring with social scientists and communication scientists,
• writing for application oriented- and professional journals (e.g. 'Bodem') and newspapers,
• presenting at professional symposia (e.g. 'Bodembreed'),
• implementing ecogenomics in educational programs, and 
• providing small abstracts on your research for websites (e.g. www.allesoverdna.nl, or this website).

Though no budget is reserved for communication support in the Ecogenomics Consortium, help on how to realize (societal) valorization targets and process facilitation is available (as presented by Roy Kloet at the Annual Meeting 2009 - 'Eco-HUH-nomics: Communicating ecogenomics to non-expert audiences'). This of course also requires a pro-active attitude towards societal valorization of ecogenomics researchers and -research leaders. It's time to valorize!