About us
History
The original idea for a European aeroallergen network was introduced by Dr. Siegfried Jäger † in the late 1980s. Colleagues from the University of Vienna, E. Halpern † and F. Hurka †, programmed the exchange and supported the efforts to achieve this important goal.
The first agreement to collaborate on pollen data and merge them into a database was reached in 1987 by founding members Siegfried Jäger (Austria), Paolo Mandrioli (Italy), Siwert Nilsson (Sweden), Marie-Roger Ickovich (France), Ritva Kupias (Finland), Peer Günther von Wahl (Germany), Nicole Nolard (Belgium) and Frits Spieksma (Netherlands). The European Aeroallergen Network (EAN), as we know it today, was then founded in 1988 on the initiative of Dr. Siegfried Jäger. At the same time, Prof. Dr. Siegfried Jäger and Prof. Dr. Jean Emberlin founded the company EPI ltd. based in Worcester, UK, in order to create the financial framework, further develop the database and secure its future operation. the activities and business areas were subsequently transferred from EPI ltd. to the company AZ Pollenresearch, based in Lower Austria, in order to ensure the continued existence of the database in the future.
Thanks to the efforts and diplomatic skills of Siegfried Jäger, the database grew with the voluntary support and unpaid work of numerous colleagues to bring together pollen data from Europe for scientific purposes. Pollen data was thus centralized in Vienna from the very beginning. The network is currently operated by the Austrian Pollen Information Service Association(www.polleninformation.at). This collaboration was and is a voluntary cooperation between analysts and aerobiologists from different backgrounds. The database itself is the largest non-commercial collection of pollen data in the world.
Status Quo
EAN currently includes information from more than 400 active and 300 historical pollen traps across Europe, including 39 countries, not all of which are on the European continent. The network has now been extended to the North American continent.
Current team:
- Dr. Markus Berger
- Uwe Berger MBA
- Lukas Dirr Msc
- Dr. Johannes M. Bouchal
- DI Christoph Jäger
Membership
The provision of data is a prerequisite for EAN membership. Access is only granted to institutions (e.g. Copernicus) in exceptional cases. Private individuals are not granted access to the network unless they are counted as data providers. There are currently around 150 users registered in the database. The users are employees of government organizations, universities, non-profit organizations or private individuals. EAN members have the possibility to access data from other pollen monitoring stations and to follow the development of the pollen season in remote areas. This access is essential for academic research, the calibration of models and the development of pollen forecasts. In addition, EAN offers the possibility to save data sets free of charge. The data use policy and trust in other members and in the administration form the basis for each EAN member to use the data.
The future
EAN's pollen database is the fundamental tool for pollen forecasting and essential for pollen information services in Europe(www.polleninformation.eu). The service functions developed in recent years, such as the European pollen load maps, the hay fever diary for patients(www.pollendiary.com) and the personalized pollen information would not have been possible without the data from EAN employees. In addition, the data are of fundamental importance for international research projects and clinical studies and are therefore of great value for allergological, climatological, ecological and meteorological studies.
Ownership, development and operation of the software
The data are the exclusive property of the data providers.
The source code of EAN is the unrestricted property of Dipl. Ing. Christoph Jäger, who developed and programmed the database in its current form.
The license to use and maintain the database has been granted exclusively to AZ Pollen Research. The use of the database for scientific and commercial studies ensures the operation of the database.
The system uses various open source projects such as Tapestry, Spring, PostgreSQL, Apache POI, JFreeChart and Apache Tomcat.
Project management
The project management is carried out by AZ Pollen Research GmbH(www.pollenresearch.com).
Responsible for the content
Association Austrian Pollen Information Service
Chairman Dr. med. Markus Berger
Tuchlauben 7a
1010 Vienna
Austria
ZVR number 1824517997
If you have any questions, please contact infohub(at)polleninformation.at