Europe currently has no harmonised approach to ensure that the iodine intake of European citizens is sufficient to prevent health problems. EUthyroid project aims to investigate the iodine intake of the European population as a basis for developing measures for the harmonisation of European iodine intake in cooperation with national authorities.
The EUthyroid kick-off meeting was held on 7-9th September 2015 and hosted by Biolution in Vienna. This meeting gave all consortium members the opportunity to present their organisations and roles in the project and provided a forum in which to discuss the project aims and outline plans for the future.
Fifty representatives from all thirty project partner institutions attended the meeting to meet other consortium members and WP collaborators and discuss the roadmap towards achieving the ambitious goal of the EUthyroid project of moving towards the elimination of iodine deficiency in Europe.
Professor Henry Völzke (University Medicine Greifswald), scientific coordinator of the EUthyroid project, welcomed the attendees and presented an introduction to the project aims and an overview and description of the interaction between the work packages. He described the large odds that EUthyroid overcame to obtain funding and praised the EU for supporting such valuable projects.
At the meeting all work package leaders were given the opportunity to present their road map for the activities of the first year of the project to the consortium as a whole, as well as in small discussion groups.
The advisory boards and project officer in attendance praised the project for its ambitious aims and the clear road map set down towards their achievement. The project partners were positive and showed strong commitment to achieve lasting impact on iodine monitoring and fortification programs in Europe.
EUthyroid consortium from 28 countries © Stefanie Freynschlag
EUthyroid consortium from 28 countries © biolution GmbH
