The EU’s pledge to spend some €200 million on nanosafety research has prompted the production of the first research strategy for the European Commission.
The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH), together with leading European researchers in the field of nanosafety, outlined the focal points of nanomaterial safety research for the period 2015-2020 at a meeting in Dublin last week.
The strategy emphasises the importance of determining the characteristics of nanomaterials that may be biologically harmful to people and the environment.
Specialist research scientist Lea Pylkkänen, from FIOH, commented: “The ultimate issue of the whole nano field is the safety of the materials and technologies used. One of the goals of the research is that, in the future, we will be able to group industrially produced nanomaterials easily and economically according to their characteristics, and that we will be able to anticipate the possible health risks of the materials to consumers and the workers who handle them.”
Professor Kai Savolainen, who presented the strategy to the European Commission and representatives of the Irish government during the EuroNanoForum 2013 congress in Dublin on 20 June, said: “We are very proud that the Commission asked us for such an important input into the co-ordination of the nanosafety research strategy within the Horizon 2020 Programme context. We consider it a mark of respect for the work we do.”
The new strategy, entitled ‘Towards safety and sustainable nanomaterials and nanotechnology innovations’, can be found on the FIOH website here.
