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The SPRINT Toolbox: a practical tool for more realistic risk assessment of pesticides

 

Webinar 

Date: Friday 13 February 2026

Time: 13:00-14:30 CET (12:00 - 13.30 GMT)

Register today: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/02d67508-6791-4085-bffd-ddffb9b3db34@27d137e5-761f-4dc1-af88-d26430abb18f

 

Join us on 13th February to learn how you can use the SPRINT Toolbox to build a clearer picture of pesticides’ impacts on human health and ecosystems and, in turn, guide stronger environmental and health protection policies.

 

What is the SPRINT Toolbox?

The SPRINT Toolbox is here to help you understand and analyse pesticide occurrence, exposure (dietary and environmental) and eco/toxic risks. It contains a collection of pesticide mapping tools, assessment tools, models and extensive European and Argentinian data from the SPRINT project 

  • For decision-makers and policy-makers, the Toolbox supports integrated risk assessments of pesticides (one/global health assessment) and informs strategies aimed at reducing pesticide use.  
  • For scientists, the Toolbox provides a structured platform integrating SPRINT data, exposure models and health impact methodologies, helping you build on existing work without unnecessary duplication.
  • For the wider public, the Toolbox shows where pesticides occur in Europe, at what levels, and their effects on humans, plants and animals. 

 

What will you learn at the webinar?

The Toolbox's developers will talk you through its key features and uses, including:

  • Pesticide concentration and ecological risk maps at the field, national and European level that indicate where pesticides may be putting ecosystems under pressure.
  • Estimates of potential dietary exposure to pesticides for humans and farm animals
  • Health Impact Assessments of pesticides - how we assessed the potential health effects of a pesticide policy, programme or project before it is implemented
  • Models to estimate pesticide emissions, fate and exposure, including SPRINT’s SWIPPE (wind-erosion model for particle-phase pesticides) model to calculate downwind concentrations of particle-phase pesticides.

You'll also explore SPRINT's results contained within the Toolbox:

  • Pesticide monitoring data from 11 case study sites in Europe and Argentina, showing the pesticide residues we detected in the environment, humans and animals.
  • The toxicity and ecotoxicity of pesticides, including how we assessed mixtures of concern. 

 

Speakers

You will hear from, and have to chance to put your questions to:

 

Anke Huss, Utrecht University

Arash Derakhshan, Utrecht University

Artur Radomyski, Masaryk University

Daniel Figueiredo, Utrecht University

Farshad Soheilifard, Technical University of Denmark

Jakub Hofman, Masaryk University

Paula da Silva Tourinho, Masaryk University

Rozita Soltani Tehrani, Wageningen University

Shiva Sabzevari, Masaryk University

Simona Panzacchi, Ramazzini Institute

Vera da Felix Silva, Wageningen University

 

>> Sign up to the webinar

 

 

Final webinar 15 Jan 26 1062 x 816 px

Join us for our next webinar, where our researchers will present key findings, recommendations and resources of the SPRINT project.

📅 Thursday 15th January 2026
⏰ 13:30-14:30 CET (12:30-13:30 GMT)
📝 Free registration: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/55aa6392-c882-43f7-b486-6607d64d5253@27d137e5-761f-4dc1-af88-d26430abb18f

In this webinar, we'll reflect on our research results from Europe and Argentina over the past 5.5 years, including:

  • Pesticide monitoring in humans and the environment: what do our results mean for real-world risks?
  • New approaches and resources for assessing pesticides' eco/toxicological risks, including the SPRINT Toolbox
  • Recommendations for regulators and policymakers to support pesticide risk assessment and transitions to more sustainable plant protection

You'll have the chance to pose your questions to the speakers.

Speakers:

  • Violette Geissen, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
  • Virginia Aparicio, National Institute of Agricultural Technology, Argentina
  • Jakub Hofman, Masaryk University, Czechia

We look forward to seeing you there!

 From_food_to_urine.png  

Recent research from SPRINT investigates which pesticides we excrete in our urine to help understand our exposure to pesticides in our diet.

You can now read an accessible, quick-to-read summary of this study in a new factsheet.

The factsheet is based on the peer-reviewed paper Relationship between dietary pesticide intake and urinary excretion: a pilot study using duplicate portion analysis by Wieland et al.  which was recently published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology & Pharmacology. 

The findings show that people are routinely exposed to mixtures of pesticides through daily eating habits, even though individual residue levels are low.

The study also indicates that although diet is a major exposure route for some pesticides, exposure to others appears to be largely non-dietary, and may stem from the indoor environment or occupational contexts. 

 

Read the factsheet
   

 

Prioritisation_factsheet.png

Recent research from SPRINT aims to make it easier for regulatory scientists to test the ecological safety of pesticide mixtures. 

You can now read an accessible, quick-to-read summary of this study in a new factsheet.

The factsheet is based on the peer-reviewed paper Prioritization of currently used pesticides in soils of main European cropping systems and an Argentinian cropping system for assessment of mixture toxicity and risk on terrestrial biota by Jegede et al. which was recently published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. 

Key points:

  • The study sets out a practical approach for selecting substances to include in ecological risk assessments of pesticide mixtures in soil.

  • The environmental risks of individual pesticides may be greater when they mix with other pesticides. Yet regulatory tests tend to focus on assessing the risks of pesticides in isolation.

  • However, there is no need to assess every pesticide in a mixture. The method allows regulatory scientists to identify which pesticides to include in their tests.
  • The new factsheet presents this prioritisation approach, which is illustrated with scenarios that include earthworms, bees, plants and microbes.

Read the factsheet