After spending a fair bit of time ‘hibernating’ at SAFENANO HQ (well, that’s how I wish it was!), this month sees the beginning of a fairly busy period for the team, and the start of a number of very important new projects in nano HSE. The first of these kicked off on Monday, with the preliminary meeting of the newly-formed FP7 action 'ObservatoryNANO' in London
ObservatoryNANO is a 4 year FP7 funded project featuring 10 partners from across Europe, the basic idea of which is to examine 10 key areas of nanotechnology development, and provide easily accessible information covering economic impact, technological advances, health & safety implications, regulations and standards both in the present time and with a horizon scanning focus.
SAFENANO/IOM have the task of leading the Health Safety aspect of the project. The task we have been set, namely to review the technological and economic reports produced by other partners and provide a comprehensive health and safety assessment of each area, is definitely going to be a challenge, but the project's outcome should be a resource that is invaluable to industry, academia and government alike. Following Monday's meeting, where the main aim was to meet everyone else, and begin ordering how to coordinate our actions with those of the people responsible for each of the 10 technical, scientific and economic reports. For the SAFENANO team, it was just great to finally start work on another of the FP7 projects everyone has worked so hard to be awarded. Following this, we’re now ready to meet with our workpackage partners RIVM, CEA and EMPA at the beginning of summer and get started on the work proper - SAFENANO will keep you updated on how we progress as the HSE aspects of the project develop.
In the meantime, there is already a website up and running to introduce users to the project - have a look at www.observatory-nano.eu for more information!