GOVERNANCE BRIEFS
Advancing risk governance of (nano)materials in Europe: recommendations from four years, wide stakeholders and experts dialogue
Five governance briefs providing to research, industry, and policy makers an overview of gaps and barriers, and recommendations on ways forward on health and safety research and regulation on nano- and advanced materials.
Nanomaterials and nano-enabled products play an enabling role in technology solutions that are crucial to address societal challenges. However, the need to balance the advantages of nanomaterials and their risks call for adequate governance actions, able to consider and deal with complexity, uncertainties and ambiguities connected to the development of these materials.
The Gov4Nano project, in cooperation with NANORIGO and RiskGONE, realized a series of case studies to put risk governance into practice. The case studies address complex and multifaceted topics:
- Importance of standardisation and harmonisation of safety test methods, and of a streamlined knowledge transfer from science to regulation
- Implementation of FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) in nano-safety data management
- Precautionary approaches and threshold values to assess exposure of particles and nanomaterials in the work environment
- Safe and Sustainable Development strategies for materials development
- Multistakeholder engagement and public communication to improve transparency and trust in risk governance
Stakeholders and experts with direct interest and influence were engaged to share expertise, develop consensus and identify recommendations in terms of research strategies, regulatory research, and policy actions.
More than 500 experts and stakeholders participated in carefully designed dialogues following a six-step methodology to deliberate on these themes: framing, assessing, engaging, evaluating and implementing. The briefs are an extract of the deliverable D5.6 ‘Report on case studies for an organisational form for Nano Risk Governance’ of the Gov4Nano project.
The governance briefs present the outcomes of these successful dialogues, and show the approach is effective to develop consensus both within a specific scientific field (experts dialogue) and across different scientific fields and organizations (multidisciplinary and multistakeholder dialogues).
More info? Write to the Gov4Nano project office for more info and get in contact with authors.
List of Governance Briefs:
1. Standardisation-Harmonisation_Gov4Nano brief
2. FAIR_Gov4Nano brief
3. Threshold values_Gov4Nano brief
4. SSbD_Gov4Nano brief
5. Public Engagement_Gov4Nano brief
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