Dermot Diamond has been appointed as leader of the Environmental Sensors working group of the European Sensor System Cluster (ESSC) initiative and will be speaking about this as part of an invited lecture at the EuroNanoForum in Riga in June.  Dermot has also been selected as a member of the Advisory Board of the Water JPI (Joint Programming Initiative).  The JPI “Water challenges for a changing world” deals with research in the field of water and hydrological sciences. The availability of water in sufficient quantities and adequate quality is indeed a public issue of high priority and addresses a pan-European and global environmental challenge.