Reevaluating new and existing challenges early career researchers face across regulatory ecotoxicology

A Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Pellston Workshop on “Improving the Usability of Ecotoxicology in Regulatory Decision-Making” was held in August 2015. One outcome of the workshop was a publication that highlighted the challenges ecotoxicologists of the future face in applying academic research to regulatory decision-making. The authors proposed that training students on issues of relevance and reliability will lead to improvements in the applicability of academic research for regulatory decision-making while also setting out the importance of cross-sector partnerships in preparing academics for a career in regulatory ecotoxicology. As nearly a decade has passed since the initial workshop, we believe it is important to reevaluate previously identified challenges faced in applying academic research to regulatory decision-making, highlight challenges not previously identified, and assess the uptake of proposed training and skills. A survey was developed and deployed online to gain understanding of the challenges early career researchers (ECRs) face in applying academic research to regulatory decision-making and the training and skills received throughout their career. A total of 52 ECRs responded to the survey. Just over a quarter of respondents (27%) considered themselves to be part of a training network; however, approximately half of all respondents stated that they have received training to understand the regulatory context of their research (52%), ecotoxicology methodologies or guidelines (44%), and principles of quality assurance and good laboratory practice (54%). We explore why ECRs may or may not receive training and assess the extent to which they agree that it has improved the applicability of their research for regulatory decision-making. We conclude that although some areas of training have developed, some remain a challenge (i.e., interdisciplinarity, cross-sector partnership) and set out a series of recommendations for ECRs to overcome new and existing challenges in applying their research to regulatory decision-making.