STATNANO.com

Asia and the EU: Moving Towards Creating a Joint Nanosafety Platform

Asia and the EU: Moving Towards Creating a Joint Nanosafety Platform

2020-11-05

Visited : 1532

Following previous three rounds of the Asia-EU dialogue on nanosafety and nanocertification in Iran (2017), Austria (2018), and Thailand (2019), the fourth dialogue was hold virtually on 7 October 2020 hosted by the Austrian federal ministry of climate action, environment, energy, innovation, and technology, in which INIC put forward a proposal for establishing an Asia-EU nanosafety cooperation platform.

It is worth mentioning that this program was initiated based on the suggestion by Iran Nanotechnology Innovation Council to European Commission in 2017 and the first event was held in Tehran in the same year by participation of representatives from European Commission of research and innovation as well as active countries from Asia and Europe.

In the 4th dialogue, Prof. Beitollahi, the senior advisor of INIC's standardization and nanosafety department, presented INIC's proposal for establishment of a cooperation platform between Asia and Europe in nanosafety called "Asia-EU Network of Networks on NanoSafety (NONNS)". As the first step it was suggested that a founding committee be formed and start working on establishment of intercontinental network on nanosafety standardization.

The proposal was welcomed in the dialogue in principle after comments and suggestions made in a panel during the dialogue and the founding committee was formed of representatives from Iran, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, EU nanosafety cluster and Austria to draft the concept and action plan, and present it to the European Commission.

The proposed platform is supposed to facilitate communication and cooperation in different layers of relevant players of nanosafety in the form of provision of services and conducting various relevant activities.

In the fourth dialogue, representatives from a number of Asian and European institutions participated and discussed different problems and challenges of the area, exchanged experience, and explored various ways to boost the cooperation between the two continents.

From EU, representatives from Europe Commission on Research and Innovation, European Nanosafety Cluster, Austria's Bionanonet, Nano Risk Governance Council, Malta initiative, and the Germany's Federal Institute of Occupational Safety and Health as well as the OECD participated. In addition representatives from relevant institutions from Slovenia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, luxembourg, Spain, UK, and Italy were present in the dialogue.
 

From Asia also representatives from institutions including Iran Nanotechnology Innovation Council, Taiwan's Academia Sinica, Thailand's Nanotech, Philippines's Nanotech initiative, India's Nanobiotechnology Center, and the South Korea's Research Institute of Standards and Science participated.

Read the original article on Iran Nanotechnology Innovation Council (INIC).