07Oct
NMBP-16 Sister Projects hold Final Ambassadors’ Meeting
by DIAGONAL, 0 Comments
For the past four years, the EU-funded Horizon 2020 NMBP-16 projects DIAGONAL, HARMLESS and SUNSHINE addressing the call topic “Safe by design, from science to regulation: multi-component nanomaterials”, worked closely together on the challenges related to safe and sustainable multicomponent nanomaterials.
Being aware of what sister projects are doing is crucial for several reasons. It helps save time and avoid duplicating efforts on the same issues, and ensuring that resources are used more efficiently. Additionally, it allows for the identification of synergies between projects, which can lead to stronger collaborations and better outcomes. By harmonising terminology, communication becomes clearer and more consistent across different teams. Furthermore, this awareness increases the overall impact of initiatives through joint outreach activities, amplifying the message and broadening the reach of project results.
The collaboration was focused around different topics. To facilitate good cross-project cooperation, so-called “Ambassadors” were nominated for each key topic. Ambassadors are experts from each project that work on a specific topic, they enable and foster the knowledge exchange aiming to harmonise the projects’ efforts and identify and positively use synergies.
Our approach to collaboration was well embedded in the EU NanoSafety Cluster and can serve as best practice example of efficient and fruitful cross-project collaboration.
The following NMBP-16 Ambassadors task forces were established:
- Stakeholder engagement & exploitation
- Grouping and read-across (hypotheses and IATA editing/development)
- Databases
- Risk management (incl. exposure assessment & risk assessment tools)
- MCNMs (meaning, case study comparison and sector-specific transparency)
- Hazard assessment
Each task force separately met on a regular basis. In addition, bi-annual meetings with the whole Ambassadors group were organised to discuss and exchange ideas, monitor the overall developments in each of the three projects (as far as confidentiality allows), and define the next steps.
The final Ambassadors’ meeting took place on 25 September 2024 in Venice (Italy). The meeting began with a brief introduction and was followed by a summary of accomplishments, focusing on collaboration highlights and success stories from each of the Ambassadors’ task forces. Lastly, the outlook for the legacy to ongoing projects was discussed within the group, defining a strategy for ensuring that all projects’ results are available for ongoing/future projects and researchers.
A joint poster was created by the three projects to inform the broader community about the collaboration approach followed. The poster is publicly available under DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13908183.