For more than 10 years NICOLE has carried out multiple projects and organised a series of workshops, providing a discussion platform in Europe and a sound technical basis for risk based management of contaminated land. Our network is today recognized as a leader in the European Union, and reaches everywhere in the world. Reoccurring themes in the discussions on risk-based land management, site investigation and remediation are sustainability and cost-efficiency and one of NICOLEs primary missions is the continuous promotion for development and improvement in these fields.

Given the success of the 2010 Technology Award on Innovative site characterization tools which was presented to a wide audience during the May 2011 Copenhagen workshop, the NICOLE Steering Group decided to launch another award for 2012 with the intent to stimulate engineers and scientists to bring forward technical innovations that can contribute to an improved practice for contaminated land management in line with the NICOLE ambition. And given the current focus in Europe on the Soil Framework Directive, the Industry Emissions Directive, and overall sustainability concepts, the consensus for the 2012 technical topic is on:

Innovative solutions for soil monitoring in contaminated land.

This award is open to individuals or groups of people. Entries from junior academics in universities or consultancy are especially welcome. Again, entries will be judged on innovation, potential contribution to cost savings, technical applicability and plans for communication and market availability, applicable to contaminated land.