Nano-EHS workshop

Background information

This international event is organized in the context of the US-EU dialogue opened in the area of Nano Environmental and Health Safety (NanoEHS) that has the goals to engage US and EU experts in active discussions encourage joint programs of work and to support activities of communities of research involving EU and US participation.

It has become increasingly clear that the generation, representation, evaluation and communications of safety-related evidence on chemicals including nanotechnology requires the establishment of a stronger knowledge infrastructure supported by harmonised methods, language and data science practices. Emerging nanotechnology in particular provides strong scientific challenges due to the complexity of the substances and the characterisation of their interactions with biological systems, including potentially new and novel mechanisms, not understood well by current knowledge.

Objectives

The objective of the workshop is to facilitate networking, knowledge sharing and idea development on the requirements and implementation of a sustainable knowledge infrastructure for Nano Environmental and Health Safety Assessment and Communications. The infrastructure should support the needs required by different stakeholders including scientific researchers, industry, regulators, workers and consumers.

The workshop will also identify funding opportunities and financial models within and beyond current international and national programs. Specifically, the workshop will facilitate active discussions but also identify potential partners for future EU-US cooperation on the development of knowledge infrastructure in the NanoEHS field. Advances in the Nano Safety harmonisation process, including developing an ongoing working consensus on data management and ontology, will be discussed:

- Information needs of stakeholders and applications
- Data collection and management in the area of NanoEHS
- Developments in ontologies supporting NanoEHS goals
- Harmonisation efforts between EU and US programs
- Identify practice and infrastructure gaps and possible solutions
- Identify needs and solutions for different stakeholders
- Propose an overarching sustainable solution for the market and society

The presentations will be focused on the current efforts and concrete achievements within EU and US initiatives and their potential elaboration and extension.

Extracting knowledge from data using the JaqPot Modelling Tool

Previous related events

Data, ontology and harmonization needs for NanoSafety Cluster (Brussels, 25 January 2016)

Knowledge Infrastructure and Framework (Brussels, 26 January 2016)