Simon Pickvance died of mesothelioma on Friday 23 November 2012. Simon was a researcher who from the 1970s brought his full intellect, rigor and out-of-the-box thinking to bear in the struggle for occupational health. He was not only among Britain’s top researchers in the field of ccupational cancers but also the tireless driving force behind an advisory service for workers in Sheffield which he set up in 1978 with left-leaning doctors and scientists and union activists in the steel industry. He was also one of the organizers of the "Hazards" network in Britain. Through his advice and suggestions, Simon informed our Institute’s health and safety work from the very beginning. He was a big-hearted man driven by a firm belief that deepreaching change could only come from organized action by workers, their collective fount of knowledge and solidarity across borders. I first met Simon at a meeting of a European network of occupational health activists in Sheffield in 1992. I still vividly recall the passion with which he spoke of the blast furnaces that still cast a pall over many parts of the city, the pride of the working class, his admiration for the daily work of union activists. Wry and impassioned, his gaze spoke volumes about the hidden beauties of this, one of Europe’s most unsightly urban landscapes if seen in terms of pure visual appeal, disregarding the lives, struggles and history of generations down the ages. Simon was a huge contributor to our chemical hazards network. He led a study which we published in 2005 on the potential benefits of REACH. Constantly referred to in the subsequent debates, that study informed the adoption of a proactive union position and the alliances we forged to champion the aims of REACH in face of enormous pressure from the chemical industry. He also harboured the aim of doing a similar study on reprotoxins and was an active campaigner for a global asbestos ban. In 2010, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer of the lung and chest linings contracted from his exposure to asbestos in the 1970s when toiling on building sites to make ends meet. Knowing that his days were numbered, he focused his energy on a new research project on the work exposure links with bladder cancer. The project aimed to reconstruct the working lives of more than 1,250 people with bladder cancer to test out an array of propositions about the chemicals that cause bladder cancer and open up new avenues for prevention. His plan was to focus specifically on jobs for which there is no epidemiological literature but a high number of recorded bladder cancer cases. He remained active until the very last. One of Simon’s last public acts in August 2012 was a broadside against the policy followed by the Health and Safety Executive (the UK’s health and safety at work agency) on occupational cancers. He wrote, “The HSE has been in denial about work cancer for over three decades, depending far too heavily on epidemiology which is only capable of seeing widespread, longestablished problems amongst large numbers of workers, employed for long periods of time, in large workplaces such as mines, mills and manufacturing. This is totally unsuitable for today's smaller and fast-evolving workplaces with more complex, and diverse exposures. It is incapable of picking up high risk exposures affecting smaller groups of workers”. The loss of Simon takes from us a friend, a rigorous researcher, and an activist of outstanding integrity. His resolve, his smile, and his kindness will be sorely missed. Laurent Vogel Director, Working Conditions, Health and Safety Department, European Trade Union Institute