Matchmaking at the ExpACT consortium meeting
20 september 2026
On 17 September, members of the ExpACT project came together in Utrecht for the second consortium meeting. With the project’s first year complete and all subprojects under way, attention is now turning to the next step: strengthening connections between project members. The meeting offered plenty of opportunities to do this, including a get-together for all early-career researchers and a matchmaking session for the whole consortium.
In the morning, the PhD candidates and postdocs of ExpACT laid the foundations for a committee for the consortium’s early-career researchers. Together, they discussed how to help young researchers in ExpACT develop, stay connected and learn from one another. They also made initial plans for activities such as workshops, work visits and lab exchanges.
The afternoon focused on matchmaking between technology developers and end users. Within ExpACT, end users are brought together in living labs across four application areas: urban, rural, industrial and workplace settings. Representatives of the living labs presented recent developments, the challenges involved, and the questions and needs they have. These included measuring nitrogen levels or metal particles in the air, and identifying the sources of pollution. The other project members then explored how they could contribute with instruments, data or expertise. The session led to interesting and sometimes unexpected connections between researchers, developers and stakeholders. These provide a strong basis for developing future air quality measurements.
