INCOBRA - Increasing International Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Brazil and the European Union

 The "Nanoinformatics: from materials to predictive toxicology and ecotoxicology" topic is part of the H2020 call FOUNDATIONS FOR TOMORROW’S INDUSTRY.

Managing the risks of every emerging technology is of key importance for its societal acceptance and consequent possible success. The overall challenge is to establish a suitable form of nanotechnology risk governance and to ensure that beyond the state of the art technologies are accepted by stakeholders (civil society, industry, regulators).

Notably nano-informatics approaches offer good chances for innovation. 

Specific Challenge:

Despite the significant amounts of data on physico-chemical and toxicological and ecotoxicological properties of nanomaterials generated over the last decades, detailed knowledge on how these properties are linked to specific physico-chemical characteristics is only beginning to emerge. The challenge is to develop and implement modern methods, more cost effective and less reliant on animal testing, for toxicity investigations in each stage of product innovation, through making best use of joining existing and emerging data with the help of progress in nanoinformatics.

Scope:

• Development of models that support the prediction of both specific functionalities and hazard and are crucial to establish safe-by-design principles at early stages of material development;
• Development of a sustainable multi-scale modelling framework, based on the integration/linking of different types of nanoinformatics models in order to advance towards predictively linking of physico-chemical NM property models to NM functionality and hazard;
• Uptake and valid use of these tools and nanoinformatics models, user-friendly interfaces to enhance accessibility and usability of the nanoinformatics models, and clear explanations of their applicability domains, especially regulatory compliance, should be provided for different stakeholders (industry, regulators, and civil society).

In line with the strategy for EU international cooperation in research and innovation (COM(2012)497), international cooperation is particularly encouraged.

Activities should start at TRL 4 and achieve TRL 6 at the end of the project.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU around EUR 6 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact:

• Reliable nanomaterials safety data systems, models and strategies to allow material characteristics to be linked to adverse outcomes;
• A validated accessible framework, designed to predict human and environmental toxicological hazards;
• Increased confidence in nanosafety nanoinformatics predictive models through agreed standards, harmonised standard operating procedures, considering OECD validation principles.

Cross-cutting Priorities:

• International cooperation
• Gender
• Open Science