ExpectedOutcome:
Proposals are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
The Commission initiative for Safe and Sustainable by Design[1] sets a framework for assessing safety and sustainability of chemicals and materials, which should be considered as a reference in the proposal.
Proposals should aim to develop integrated approaches for the assessment of health and environmental impacts together with the social and economic sustainability aspects of a chemical or material, all along their life-cycle. The projects should acknowledge and account for the fact that safety and sustainability of a chemical or material are the result of a mix of intrinsic properties (dependent only on the chemical or material itself) and extrinsic properties (dependent on how the chemical or material is produced or used, and in which quantity and resulting exposures). The proposals should also aim to foster the acceptance and effective uptake of the developed approaches within different sectors. The developed methodologies should support and facilitate decision making when having to weight multiple sustainability criteria against each other. The developed methodologies should contribute to the estimation of health, environmental as well as social and economic impacts at EU and global scale.
Proposals should consider all the following activities:
Proposals submitted under this topic should demonstrate synergies with the EU-funded projects from the topic CE-NMBP-42-2020 and the forthcoming topic HORIZON-CL4-2023-RESILIENCE-01-21. In addition, collaboration with the European Partnership on Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC)[3] with regards to their task on delivering the SSbD toolbox is encouraged. Concerning health impact assessment, projects are encouraged to establish synergies with projects resulting from the topic HORIZON-HLTH-2022-ENVHLTH-04-01. Proposals should allocate the necessary resources for collaboration with the above-mentioned relevant projects.
Proposals should indicate to which chapters of the Strategic Research and Innovation Plan for chemicals and materials[4] they will contribute.
Proposals should involve appropriate expertise in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), in particular in social and economic assessments, to achieve efficient integration of techno-economic, safety and life cycle assessment.
Co-operation with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) may be envisaged in areas of mutual interest with regards to methods development and their wider uptake.
Synergies with Horizon Europe missions as relevant are encouraged.
Specific Topic Conditions:Activities are expected to achieve TRL 2-5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
[1]See documents defining the SSbD framework on: https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/key-enabling-technologies/advanced-materials-and-chemicals_en
[2]Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable
[3]https://www.anses.fr/en/content/european-partnership-assessment-risks-chemicals-parc
[4]https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/key-enabling-technologies/advanced-materials-and-chemicals_en