PARC is an EU-wide research and innovation partnership programme to support EU and national chemical risk assessment and risk management bodies with new data, knowledge, methods, networks and skills to address current, emerging and novel chemical safety challenges. PARC will facilitate the transition to next generation risk assessment to better protect human health and the environment, in line with the Green Deal?s zero-pollution ambition for a toxic free environment and will be an enabler for the future EU ?Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability?. It builds in part on the work undertaken and experience acquired in past and on-going research and innovation actions, but goes beyond by its vocation to establish an EU-wide risk assessment hub of excellence. To contribute to several expected impacts of destination 2 ?Living and working in a health-promoting environment?, PARC will organise the activities to reach three specific objectives: - An EU-wide sustainable cross-disciplinary network to identify and agree on research and innovation needs and to support research uptake into regulatory chemical risk assessment. - Joint EU research and innovation activities responding to identified priorities in support of current regulatory risk assessment processes for chemical substances and to emerging challenges. - Strengthening existing capacities and building new transdisciplinary platforms to support chemical risk assessment. The Partnership brings together Ministries and national public health and risk assessment agencies, as well as research organisations and academia from almost all of EU Member States. Representatives of Directorates-General of the EC and EU agencies involved in the monitoring of chemicals and the assessment of risks are also participating. PARC will meet the needs of risk assessment agencies to better anticipate emerging risks and respond to the challenges and priorities of the new European policies.

The POLYRISK project aims unraveling the risks of microplastic and nanoplastic particles (MNP) that are ubiquitous in our environment and are likely to be entering the human body via inhalation and ingestion. The most bioavailable low-micron and nano-sized MNP, pose the biggest analytical challenges or today’s analytical chemists. Existing knowledge about the adverse pro-inflammatory effects of airborne particulate matter and nanoparticles, combined with pro-inflammatory evidence of MNP exposure observed in animal models and in vitro pilot tests with human immune cells, suggests that MNP may cause immunotoxicity in humans. Occupational exposure of workers to fibrous MNP can indeed lead to granulomatous lesions, causing respiratory irritation, functional abnormalities and flock worker’s lung. Currently, human health risk assessment protocols specific to MNP are not available and key data is missing. This hampers science-based decision making. On this backdrop, POLYRISK’s human risk assessment strategy will combine highly advanced sampling, sample pretreatment and analytical methods to detect MNP in complex matrices, up-to-date fit-for-purpose hazard assessment technologies and multiple real-life human exposure scenarios. We will focus on key toxic events linked to several chronic inflammatory diseases. The consortium uniquely brings together interdisciplinary experience and know-how on quality-controlled chemical analyses of MNP and additives, intestinal and respiratory toxicity models, human exposure epidemiology, immunotoxicology and real-life high-exposure studies. POLYRISK’s novel human risk assessment strategy is based on mechanistic reasoning and pragmatically accommodates the complexity of the MNP toxicant class. Building with ground-breaking science, stakeholder engagement and strong communication, POLYRISK aims to rapidly reduce current MNP risk uncertainties and support EU efforts to ensure public health is adequately protected from the potential risks of MNP pollution. POLYRISK is a part of the European cluster on Health Impacts of Micro- and Nanoplastics.

European citizens affected by COVID-19 have been well-served by landmark clinical trials in hospitals that have found treatments that save many lives. However, there are fewer opportunities for people in the community to contribute to the urgent mission of finding treatments that speed recovery, and reduce the need for hospital admission in the first place. Evidence-based therapeutics for use in primary care have the potential for considerable reach and impact on individual suffering and functioning, as well as on the sustainability of health services. ECRAID-Prime, a European Adaptive Platform Trial (APT) of therapeutics for patients with COVID-19 and potentially COVID-like illness in primary care will build on many years of EU investment in infrastructure for primary care trials and a mature primary care research network that has pioneered novel, efficient, platform clinical trial designs. In the winter of 2022/23, respiratory viruses will be co-circulating and disease aetiology can’t be distinguished solely on clinical grounds. Treatments with potentially broad antiviral activity will be most beneficial if started early in the disease trajectory. For those treatments patients with syndromic COVID-like-illness might be included. ECRAID-Prime, with a focus on early phase studies of safety and efficacy of exciting candidate treatments for COVID-19 and COVID-like illness will be rapidly set up. Its goal is to test at least four candidate treatments, identifying suitability for inclusion in the next phases of research, and so leading to critical additions to the primary care therapeutic armamentarium against COVID-19 and COVID-like illness. ECRAID-Prime will additionally help complete the vison for a lasting, integrated, comprehensive and sustainable European clinical research preparedness and response capacity, Ecraid, that will provide a full, integrated suite of international priority clinical trials in intensive care units, hospital wards, and now in primary care as well.