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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EC4SafeNano (European Centre for Risk Management and Safe Innovation in Nanomaterials Nanotechnologies)

Teaser

Summary

The European Center for Risk Management and Safe Innovation in Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies, EC4SafeNano, is a 2016-2019 Coordination and Support Action, funded by the European Commission. EC4SafeNano is coordinated by INERIS, and operated together by major European institutes with the support of numerous associated partners, gathering all stakeholders involved in Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies (regulators, industry, society, research, service providers...).
The overall objective of the EC4SafeNano project is to define and validate operating principles, a governance strategy and a sustainability model for an independent science-based Center of European organisations for Risk Management and Safe Innovation for Nanomaterials & Nanotechnologies to support industry, safety service providers, regulators and public stakeholders.
A second objective of the EC4SafeNano project is to produce and promote guidance documents for available tools, SOPs, best practices, infrastructures etc for the safe management of nanotechnology.
The resources and capabilities available within the EC4SafeNano Center will make it possible to provide expert knowledge and technical solutions (technology, skills and processes) to enable the safe production and use of nanotechnologies. These solutions will address the needs of industry, regulators and civil society to enhance European industrial innovation and competitiveness, and will be continuously updated to reflect changing stakeholder needs and emerging tools and knowledge. As stakeholder needs may evolve over time, a mechanism will be put in place to update the inventory of needs constantly over time.
The organised structure should attract financial support from these stakeholders / service users to ensure that the services can be self-sustaining in the longer term and its efficiency shall be demonstrated through several case studies.

Work performed

A central challenge to ensure the sustainable production and use of nanotechnologies is firstly the assessment of all relevant stakeholder needs and the mapping of the resources and service available through a large international survey.
To form the inventory of needs more than 10,000 contacts were addressed directly or through stakeholder relays. 138 of these contacts responded to the Survey. A task force for efficiently updating this knowledge and not relying on conventional stakeholder surveys has been formed. In addition, an inventory of available tools, methods, standards, standard operating procedures (SOPs), training material, guidance documents and best practices related to nanosafety were performed. The availability and the barriers to data sharing of the resources generated in EU projects as well as by industry and regulatory parties also was investigated.
An extended analysis of needs and resources was done through a dedicated software tool (FGA Tool) for fit and gap analyses as well as to produce a first scheme of a catalogue of services.
A second challenge was to address gaps in harmonized services through a â€˜Fit & Gap Analysisâ€™ and specific actions to identify principles of harmonization principles and mechanisms for shared technical services including trade mark certified services were considered.
Several case studies were identified to demonstrate the functionality of the center and the newly developed structures. Through a specific analysis of all needs gathered (through EC4SafeNano survey as well as through already existing mapping e.g. NanoREG) a list of relevant questions was collated, and these questions have been prioritized with regard to their suitability to be developed into case studies by an online-survey. The final selection of case studies have been selected to test the Centerâ€™s capability to provide a variety of different services.
Finally, to prepare the second part of the project devoted to promoting this vision and gathering feedback from possible members of the Center, and other users and interested parties, a dedicated action was to the promote the Center and launch national focus groups and networking actions has been started involvinhg involving all associated partners.

Final results

At this stage of the project impact can be seen from the work done in WPs 1, 2, 5 and 6, as summarised below.

- The description of current needs of all stakeholder defines the scope of the EC4SafeNano and of its services by providing insights in: which nanotechnology work is undertaken by the responding organisations, the critical risks in nanotechnology they manage, the problems they face and the technical support they may require. This information is used to match the demand and resources in the catalogue of services and can be used to guide the eventual development of harmonized services. The survey has included a link for organisations to register to the focus networks for further involvement in the construction of the future European hub of services in nanosafety as associated partners.
Available nanosafety-related resources were mapped and analysed. Also, an inventory of available tools, methods, standards, SOPs, training material, guidance documents, and best practices related to nanosafety was successfully carried out. These results have important impact on compilation of the Fit&Gap analysis as well as the Catalogue of Services.
Progress towards the overall strategy for data management will support the operation of the EC4SafeNano Center during the project and also after the project has ended.

- The case studies performed will serve to demonstrate the functionality of the new center and to showcase its capabilities to stakeholders in a workshop at the final conference. Therefore, they will contribute to the attraction of new members and associated partners of the center. Furthermore, it is intended to use those case studies for the development of the first harmonized services to be offered by EC4SafeNano in the future. Potential publications in scientific peer reviewed journals resulting from these studies will further increase the public impact of the project.

- The scheme of a sustainable center was drawn and a specific public document was created to beshared with all parties potentially interested in joining the center. We expect to have drawn the basis for gathering numerous organisations and experts reinforcing the impact of the project in the nanosafety community. A careful attention was devoted to the identification of a governance being able to fit constraints raised by some organisation, willing to contribute but having legal and conceptual constraints in terms of liability or governance.

- The governance and organization of the Focus Network of EC4SafeNano has been finalized and the network has been established in cooperation with all project partners. These activities ensures the involvement of APs and increases the reach and visibility of the project and helps in moving forward to the final goal of building the centre. The project results were regularly disseminated via a variety of communication channels to multiple target groups which will increase the overall impact of the project.

- National networking establishes a direct network with national/regional platforms working on nanosafety to harmonize the nanosafety relevant practices. 29 platforms were identified and they are invited for an interactive workshop which will increase the impact of the project.