Environmental Chemistry in higher education across Europe

In the academic year 2024/25, the EuChemS Division on Chemistry and the Environment (DCE) conducted a Europe-wide survey of higher education programmes that include Environmental Chemistry, either as the principal discipline or as embedded content in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary curricula. Information on 300 programmes was collected from universities in 31 countries, i.e. 113 at the 1st, 156 at the 2nd and 31 at the 3rd study level. Respectively, 42%, 35% and 19% of the programmes shared details on the contents, teaching tools used, needs and future plans, while the rest of the responding programmes shared only basic information. With basic information on additional 159 1st and 2nd study level programmes based on web search by the authors (mostly for non-responsive countries), in total, 428 programmes at the 1st and the 2nd study level were identified. Since response rate varied dramatically across countries, the representativeness was severely undermined the findings for Europe as a whole. From the information collected from programmes which responded, it was found that multidisciplinary and/or environmental compartment-related approaches are present in programmes' design early, even from 1st level of education and more diverse at the 2nd level. Environmental Chemistry is taught in science programmes containing the terms 'environment(-al)', 'Chemistry', 'Geoscience' and 'Toxicology', but also quite frequently in engineering programmes. The water, climate, protection and sustainability themes are very common. A wide variety of programmes clearly reflects the importance of knowledge about the behaviour and effects of chemicals (including accompanying substances and waste products) in the environment for the training of experts in a variety of professions and occupational fields. The analysis of the contents of programmes with Environmental Chemistry as their principal discipline suggests that there is no uniform understanding of what exactly constitutes the discipline as a main or important topic within an interdisciplinary curriculum, most probably as a consequence of very broad discipline's boundaries. Greater consistency and better comparability of the content, skills and qualifications offered by degree programmes to be acquired therein could be achieved through a coordinated effort which would better define core contents.