ADVOCATE (Advancing sustainable in situ remediation for contaminated land and groundwater) was a multidisciplinary consortium of 20 academic and industry partners across 5 European countries, which undertook research in fundamental science, processes and innovative technology applications in the field of in situ remediation (www.theadvocateproject.co.uk). The network provided high-quality research training to young scientists, through fully-funded Early Stage Researcher (PhD level) and Experienced Researcher (Post-doctoral level) fellowships. The academic partners included leading European university research groups in this field. The industry partners included all stakeholder interests (site owners, commercial R&D, regulatory bodies, water utilities, consulting firms, public outreach, SMEs and multinationals). The team of 14 fellows employed by ADVOCATE researched scientific topics covering a wide range of important pollutant problems within the training themes described below. The project had an international advisory group and undertook a comprehensive programme of knowledge transfer activities with other scientific networks and industry bodies in this field. Progress of the fellows can be followed in the ADVOCATE newsletters, which can be downloaded from www.theadvocateproject.co.uk

Research training themes

ADVOCATE provided applied research training in the following areas:

• Socio-economic and sustainability aspects of in situ remediation
• Linking soil and vadose zone processes to in situ remediation of groundwater
• Groundwater-surface water interaction and in situ remediation
• In situ remediation of metal-contaminated sites
• Developing in situ treatment strategies for mixed contaminants
• Enhancing bioremediation processes
• Performance assessment of natural attenuation at field scale
• Network knowledge transfer and research dissemination

As a Marie Curie Initial Training Network, ADVOCATE also provided advanced training to early stage and experienced researchers in scientific, technical and practical skills related to the research of sustainable in situ remediation techniques and applications for contaminated land and groundwater.