Press release: The Sustainable Nanotechnologies Project Comes to an End with a Transition into the Future

Press Release

The EU FP7 SUN Sustainable Nanotechnologies (SUN) Project has successfully hosted a week of high ranking, international nanotechnology events in Venice in the period 1 – 3 March 2017.
The project’s final events served as an effective platform to disseminate the main output from 3 and half years of research focused on developing tools aimed at estimating and managing occupational, consumer, and environmental risks from nanomaterials in real industrial products along their lifecycles. The events were attended by a large international audience encompassing researchers from the European Nanosafety community and the International Society for Risk Analysis, regulators and industry representatives.

The SRA Policy Forum: Risk Governance for Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) brought together more than 140 delegates from around the globe and was a successful avenue for SUN’s efforts to transfer the knowledge generated within the project to the wider topic of KETs. This contributed not only to a better understanding of the major challenges emerging from uncertain technology risks, but also to developing ideas on how to overcome those across different industrial sectors. In this way, the conference provided important input to the future international multidisciplinary research agenda for further development of the field of risk innovation governance for KETs.

Jointly organized and sponsored by the EU-FP7 SUN project, the Horizon 2020 caLIBRAte project, the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) and the NanoLab project, the Forum showcased current efforts put towards addressing the risks of emerging technologies featuring a key note speech by Lieutenant General Thomas P. Bostick, PhD, describing the challenges of risk governance in government and industry, 5 interactive panels, 15 parallel sessions and 2 poster sessions.

The SRA Policy Forum was a great opportunity to demonstrate that the results from the excellent research on developing methods and tools for assessing and managing the risks from nanotechnologies performed by projects like SUN and caLIBRAte are applicable also to other emerging technologies that are currently facing similar scientific and regulatory challenges. The conference has contributed to developing ideas on how to overcome some of these challenges by means of robust risk governance approaches. Such approaches can not only manage risk, but can also help in steering innovation so that these technologies successfully cross the “Valley of Death” to have a more sustainable and competitive future on the global market”, says Dr. Danail Hristozov, Principal Investigator of the SUN project.

2 satellite events were held within the SRA Risk Forum, namely the EU NanoSafety Cluster Task Force Meeting (coordinated by caLIBRAte) for establishment of an EC Nanotechnologies Risk Governance Body, and the SUN-CaLIBRAte Stakeholders workshop:  From nano risk management to innovation governance: Developing state of the art, reliable and trustable, governance models and tools for nanomaterials.

The week started with the EU NanoSafety Cluster Task Force Meeting, which took place on 1st March in the Ca’Foscari University of Venice. The workshop set the dialogue for the upcoming conference by explaining the need for a coordinated EU action on nano-risk governance. Its objectives were introduced by Dr. Georgios Katalagarianakis from the European Commission who stressed that “governance means, first, defining a goal or goals, then implementing policies towards the goal and taking action on information, communication, planning and feedback, and monitoring of the progress” pointing out the key challenge on the way to the governance of engineered nanomaterials is in engaging the civil society. The meeting was chaired by the Task Force and caLIBRAte project coordinator Keld Alstrup Jensen from the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Denmark. Minutes and presentations given at the meeting are available at the NanoSafety Cluster Website.

The week concluded with the SUN-caLIBRAte Stakeholders workshop: From nano risk management to innovation governance: Developing state of the art, reliable and trustable, governance models and tools for nanomaterials held on 2-3 March 2017. The workshop was a successful synergistic effort to bridge activities of the large EU-funded research projects SUN and caLIBRAte by fostering progression of risk assessment and management towards risk governance, through integration of traditional and new models routed in physical science and approaches from social science and related disciplines.
The workshop served as an effective platform to discuss stakeholders’ risk perception and needs on managing risk, to present state of the art achievements on nano-risk governance, as well as to explore the SUN software-based Decision Support System (SUNDS) as one of the elements of the future caLIBRAte System of Systems risk governance framework for nanotechnologies.
For more information about SUNDS visit: http://sunds.dais.unive.it.

The Sustainable Nanotechnologies Project’s main objectives were to:

  • Establish new methods and tools for prediction of longer-term nanomaterials exposure, effects and risks for humans and ecosystems (services)
  • Propose implementable practices for risk prevention and control applicable to industrial, consumer and environmental settings
  • Create guidance for safer production, handling and end-of-life treatment of nano-enabled products
  • Develop a risk management Decision Support System for practical use by industries and regulators.

The SUN project results are made available for download here:

www.sun-fp7.eu/project-results

Short report from the nanosafety conference co-organised by GuideNano, NanoSolutions, eNanoMapper, SUN and NanoMILE

NMSA2017

The week of 6-9th February saw the European nanosafety community converge in Malaga for the “New tools and approaches for nanosafety assessment” conference, jointly organised by 5 of the large FP7 projects ending around now. The 5 projects were: the sister projects NanoSolutions and NanoMILE, who were investigating mechanisms of toxicity of nanomaterials and developing mechanistic-based classification and grouping approaches, the sister projects GUIDEnano and SUNfocussing on development of tools for risk evaluation and mitigation and decision support tools to support industry and regulators, and eNanoMapper project focusing on developing an ontology, data infrastructure and modelling tools for nanosafety.

The conference showcased the outputs from 3 to 4 years of research from these 5 projects, via keynote presentations and short highlight presentations, as well as featuring short presentations from experts across Europe and beyond selected from the submitted abstracts. Overall, there were 75 short presentations, 2 posters sessions (close to 100 posters) and 2 panel discussions, one focussing on “Stakeholder engagement – lessons learned and the path forward for H2020 projects – multi-stakeholder perspectives” and the other addressing “Ensuring the legacy of EU-funded project outputs: strategies and supports needed” featuring panellists from the USA, Brazil, EU and spanning industry, industry organisations, funding agencies, standardisation bodies, international organisations, large enterprise and regulatory and policy organisations. A report on the stakeholder discussions is in preparation and will be shared with the community in due course. However, the key message was that a huge body of data has now been generated, and the quality of the data presented across the 3 days was complemented, but there is now a real need to integrate this dataset into clear, consistent key messages for use by industry, regulators and policy makers.

A best poster award, sponsored by RSC journal Environmental Science: Nano was presented to Susan Dekkers from RIVM for her poster entitled “The influence of redox activity of inhaled nano-sized cerium dioxide on respiratory, immune and cardiovascular effects in multiple mouse models“. This was selected by a panel of roving judges who assessed the posters over the 2 days.

The 220 participants came from all 27 EU countries, as well as South Africa, USA, China, South Korea and beyond. For those that couldn’t be present, the entire conference has been recorded, and will be made available online via a dedicated landing page hosted by Inclusive Digital as well as via the individual project websites and with links from the EU Nanosafety cluster webpage. Several short movies are also being prepared, featuring interviews with the various project coordinators, members of the stakeholder panels and more. Tweets were tagged with #nmsa2017.

 

Save the date for the EU NanoSafety Cluster Task Force Meeting for establishment of an EC Risk Governance of Nanotechnologies

NSCYou are hereby invited to join the Nano Risk Governance task force, which is an action under the European NanoSafety Cluster, and attend the operational kick of meeting in Venice (Italy) on Wednesday, March 1, 2017. The meeting is conveniently organized as a side-arrangement to the Society for Risk Analysis Policy Forum Meeting on the Risk Governance for Key Enabling Technologies, which also takes place in Venice during this week.

The workshop is organized as a thematic NSC meeting, and will end just before the start of the Society for Risk Analysis Policy Forum Meeting on Risk Governance for Key Enabling Technologies, which also takes place in Venice on March 1nd to 3rd, 2007. So you will be able to cover both events.

The workshop is open to NanoSafety Cluster partners. Please see the invitation and planned agenda and note that you need to register following the link in the invitation or directly from here.

For more information please visit:

www.sun-fp7.eu/events/upcoming-events/eu-nanosafety-cluster-meeting

Save the date for the SUN-CaLIBRAte Stakeholders workshop: From nano risk management to innovation governance: Developing state of the art, reliable and trustable, governance models and tools for nanomaterials

Save the dates 2nd – 3rd March on your calendar!

The event aims to engage stakeholders to:

  • Discuss stakeholders’ needs, priorities and views on managing risks in the innovation, launch, and post marketing monitoring process
  • Present state of the art achievements on nano-risk governance, basing on the aims of the caLIBRAte and outcomes of the concluding SUN project
  • Explore the SUN decision support system for risk –benefit evaluation and management
  • Contribute to define the criteria and function of the future caLIBRAte Systems of Systems risk governance framework.

The workshop will deliver an overview of different activities in the USA and EU that have led to developing frameworks and tools for risk governance of nanotechnologies. One of these approaches is the risk-benefit decision support system of the SUN project (i.e. SUNDS), which will be presented and discussed in the context of the risk governance framework under development in the caLIBRAte project.

For more information please visit:

www.sun-fp7.eu/events/upcoming-events/sun-calibrate-workshop

Summary Report on the 3rd SUN Stakeholder workshop

The report on the 3rd SUN Stakeholder workshop, held on 6 October, 2016 in Edinburgh is now published

The current understanding of the environmental and health risks of manufactured nanomaterials (MN) is still limited, which may result in stagnation of nanotechnology innovation. The EU FP7 Sustainable Nanotechnologies (SUN) project is based on the idea that this knowledge can nevertheless guide nanomanufacturing to avoid liabilities if risk analysis is complemented by a sound socioeconomic analysis in an integrated approach addressing the complete product lifecycle. This is the main rationale behind developing the SUN user-friendly, software-based Decision Support System (SUNDS) for managing the environmental, economic and social impacts of nanotechnologies.
The aim of this workshop was to generate ideas for potential future uses of the SUNDS Decision Support System.

You can download the full report here.

The Sustainable Nanotechnologies Project’s Final Events: Bringing Nano Environmental Health and Safety Assessment to the Wider Discussion on Risk Governance of Key Enabling Technologies

Press release

The EU FP7 Sustainable Nanotechnologies (SUN) Project is coming to its end in March 2017. The project has designed its final events to serve as an effective platform to communicate the main results achieved in its course within the Nanosafety community and bridge them to a wider audience addressing the emerging risks of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs).

The series of events include the New Tools and Approaches for Nanomaterial Safety Assessment: A joint conference organized by NANOSOLUTIONS, SUN, NanoMILE, GUIDEnano and eNanoMapper to be held on 7 – 9 February 2017 in Malaga, Spain, the SUN-CaLIBRAte Stakeholders workshop to be held on 28 February – 1 March 2017 in Venice, Italy and the SRA Policy Forum: Risk Governance for Key Enabling Technologies to be held on 1- 3 March in Venice, Italy.

Jointly organized by the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) and the SUN Project, the SRA Policy Forum will address current efforts put towards refining the risk governance of emerging technologies through the integration of traditional risk analytic tools alongside considerations of social and economic concerns. The parallel sessions will be organized in 4 tracks:  Risk analysis of engineered nanomaterials along product lifecycle, Risks and benefits of emerging technologies used in medical applications, Challenges of governing SynBio and Biotech, and Methods and tools for risk governance.
The SRA Policy Forum has announced its speakers and preliminary Programme. Confirmed speakers include:

  • Keld Alstrup Jensen (National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark)
  • Elke Anklam (European Commission, Belgium)
  • Adam Arkin (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
  • Phil Demokritou (Harvard University, USA)
  • Gerard Escher (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
  • Lisa Friedersdor (National Nanotechnology Initiative, USA)
  • James Lambert (President, Society for Risk Analysis, USA)
  • Andre Nel (The University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
  • Bernd Nowack (EMPA, Switzerland)
  • Ortwin Renn (University of Stuttgart, Germany)
  • Vicki Stone (Heriot-Watt University, UK)
  • Theo Vermeire (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Netherlands)
  • Tom van Teunenbroek (Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, The Netherlands)
  • Wendel Wohlleben (BASF, Germany)

The New Tools and Approaches for Nanomaterial Safety Assessment (NMSA) conference aims at presenting the main results achieved in the course of the organizing projects fostering a discussion about their impact in the nanosafety field and possibilities for future research programmes.  The conference welcomes consortium partners, as well as representatives from other EU projects, industry, government, civil society and media. Accordingly, the conference topics include: Hazard assessment along the life cycle of nano-enabled products, Exposure assessment along the life cycle of nano-enabled products, Risk assessment & management, Systems biology approaches in nanosafety, Categorization & grouping of nanomaterials, Nanosafety infrastructure, Safe by design. The NMSA conference key note speakers include:

  • Harri Alenius (University of Helsinki, Finland,)
  • Antonio Marcomini (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy)
  • Wendel Wohlleben (BASF, Germany)
  • Danail Hristozov (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy)
  • Eva Valsami-Jones (University of Birmingham, UK)
  • Socorro Vázquez-Campos (LEITAT Technolоgical Center, Spain)
  • Barry Hardy (Douglas Connect GmbH, Switzerland)
  • Egon Willighagen (Maastricht University, Netherlands)
  • Nina Jeliazkova (IDEAconsult Ltd., Bulgaria)
  • Haralambos Sarimveis (The National Technical University of Athens, Greece)

During the SUN-caLIBRAte Stakeholder workshop the final version of the SUN user-friendly, software-based Decision Support System (SUNDS) for managing the environmental, economic and social impacts of nanotechnologies will be presented and discussed with its end users: industries, regulators and insurance sector representatives. The results from the discussion will be used as a foundation of the development of the caLIBRAte’s Risk Governance framework for assessment and management of human and environmental risks of MN and MN-enabled products.

The SRA Policy Forum: Risk Governance for Key Enabling Technologies and the New Tools and Approaches for Nanomaterial Safety Assessment conference are now open for registration. Abstracts for the SRA Policy Forum can be submitted till 15th November 2016.
For further information go to:
www.sra.org/riskgovernanceforum2017
www.nmsaconference.eu

SUN shares its latest achievements during the 3rd Annual Project Meeting

Press release

The results from the 3rd SUN annual meeting showed great advancement of the project. The meeting was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK on 4-5 October 2016 where the project partners presented the results obtained during the second reporting period of the project.
SUN is a three and a half year EU project, running from 2013 to 2017, with a budget of about €14 million. Its main goal is to evaluate the risks along the supply chain of engineered nanomaterials and incorporate the results into tools and guidelines for sustainable manufacturing.
The ultimate goal of the SUN Project is the development of an online software Decision Support System – SUNDS – aimed at estimating and managing occupational, consumer, environmental and public health risks from nanomaterials in real industrial products along their lifecycles. The SUNDS beta prototype has been released last October, 2015, and since then the main focus has been on refining the methodologies and testing them on selected case studies i.e. nano-copper oxide based wood preserving paint and nano- sized colourants for plastic car part: organic pigment and carbon black. Obtained results and open issues were discussed during the third annual meeting in order collect feedbacks from the consortium that will inform, in the next months, the implementation of the final version of the SUNDS software system, due by March 2017.

Significant interest has been payed towards the results obtained in WP2 (Lifecycle Thinking) which main objectives are to assess the environmental impacts arising from each life cycle stage of the SUN case studies (i.e. Nano-WC-Cobalt (Tungsten Carbide-cobalt) sintered ceramics, Nanocopper wood preservatives, Carbon Nano Tube (CNT) in plastics, Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) as food additive, Nano-Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) air filter system, Organic pigment in plastics and Nanosilver (Ag) in textiles), and compare them to conventional products with similar uses and functionality, in order to develop and validate criteria and guiding principles for green nano-manufacturing. Specifically, the consortium partner COLOROBBIA CONSULTING S.r.l. expressed its willingness to exploit the results obtained from the life cycle assessment analysis related to nanoTiO2 in their industrial applications.

On 6th October, the discussions about the SUNDS advancement continued during a Stakeholder Workshop, where representatives from industry, regulatory and insurance sectors shared their feedback on the use of the decision support system. The recommendations collected during the workshop will be used for the further refinement and implemented in the final version of the software which will be released by March 2017.

New Tools and Approaches for Nanomaterial Safety Assessment (NMSA) Call for Abstracts Extended

The Call for Abstracts for the New Tools and Approaches for Nanomaterial Safety Assessment: A joint conference organized by NANOSOLUTIONS, SUN, NanoMILE, GUIDEnano and eNanoMapper has been extended, and now closes on Friday, 21 October 2016.

Conference topics

Jointly organized by five major FP7 projects NANOSOLUTIONS, SUN, NanoMILE, GUIDEnano and eNanoMapper, the conference aims at presenting the main results achieved in the course of the projects fostering a discussion about their impact in the nanosafety field and possibilities for future research programmes. The conference welcomes consortium partners from the organizing projects, as well as representatives from other EU projects, industry, government, civil society and media. Accordingly, topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

  • Hazard assessment along the life cycle of nano-enabled products
  • Exposure assessment along the life cycle of nano-enabled products
  • Risk assessment & management
  • Systems biology approaches in nanosafety
  • Categorization & grouping of nanomaterials
  • Nanosafety infrastructure
  • Safe by design

Conference highlights

  • 10 Scientific Sessions
  • 5 Keynote presentations
  • Stakeholders workshop
  • Over 300 attendees

Stakeholders workshop

The conference will be wrapped up with a stakeholder workshop which will provide a platform for an open discussion with interested stakeholders that could ultimately guide the research needs that should be addressed in future projects.

Further information

For more information please visit: www.nmsaconference.eu

Please feel free to distribute the conference flyer to your colleagues!

                                                        

Abstract submission deadline for the SRA Policy Forum is now EXTENDED until 15 October 2016

The extended deadline for abstract submission is Saturday, 15 October 2016. This will be the final deadline – submit your abstracts now!     deadlineextended

Topics:

The discussion topics for the SRA Forum will center on emerging risk issues of key enabling technologies such as traditional risk assessment (detection, toxicology, fate, and material exposure), risk communication (stakeholder engagement), and more novel approaches (risk governance under uncertainty).

Speakers:

International experts from Europe and the United States have been invited:

  • Keld Alstrup Jensen (National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark)
  • Elke Anklam (European Commission, Belgium)
  • Adam Arkin (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
  • Phil Demokritou (Harvard University, USA)
  • Gerard Escher (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
  • Lisa Friedersdor (National Nanotechnology Initiative, USA)
  • James Lambert (President, Society for Risk Analysis, USA)
  • Andre Nel (The University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
  • Bernd Nowack (EMPA, Switzerland)
  • Ortwin Renn (University of Stuttgart, Germany)
  • Vicki Stone (Heriot-Watt University, UK)
  • Theo Vermeire (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Netherlands)
  • Wendel Wohlleben (BASF, Germany)

For further information please visit www.sra.org/riskgovernanceforum2017!