PARC – European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals, launched on the 11th of May in Paris, aims to develop new ways of chemical risk assesment, incorporating human health and environment in a “One Health” approach. A team from ENSP-NOVA integrates this project, with the coordination of Professor Susana Viegas.
This programme, led by ANSES – the French national agency for food safety – includes nearly 200 scientific partners (universities and research organizations) as well as three European agencies (EEA – European Environment Agency, ECHA – European Chemicals Agency and EFSA – European Food Safety Authority). It is built on the European strategy for sustainability and in the Green deal goal for “zero pollution”, creating a wider group of research organizations and health agencies, able to run global projects, share knowledge and develop new risk assessment tools.
This collaboration supports, at an European and national level, strategies for the reduction of the exposure to hazardous chemicals and their impact on health and the environment, and was built in previous work as part of the European Joint Programme HBM4EU (Human Biomonitoring for Europe), which will end in summer 2022, as well as projects like EURION, ASPIS, EU-ToxRisk and EuroMix. The creation of accessible and relevant data as well as new methods and tools for identifying new less hazardous substances are part of this programme’s tasks.
The programme will run for seven years, ending on the Spring of 2029, with a total budget of 400 million euros, funded in 50% by the European Commission and the rest by the partner countries.