PINK’s Objectives are pursued by a highly interdisciplinary team of leading research institutes, SMEs, universities and one innovative large industry and one industry association opening access to additional large and small industry partners.
7P9-SI, a Slovenia-based SME, will coordinate the project and will lead WP5 and WP8-10. The 7P9-SI management team has experience on (co-)coordinating large EU-funded projects from previous employments and leading of data management WPs. Development of the semantic interoperability framework and FAIRification of data, models and software will be one of the major contributions to PINK.
7P9-DE is a Germany-based SME with strong ties to the coordinator 7P9-SI. Besides collaboration with 7P9-SI in the field of data management and knowledge sharing, it is highly engaged European and global initiatives on (nano)material safety and SSbD.
AcumenIST
AcumenIST (AIST) has a strong track record in materials-science and R&I-management, public and regulatory affairs, harmonisation & standardisation, and policy-assessment/-development, and provides PINK with targeted dissemination-, communication- and exploitation-management as well as streamlined secretariat support (PS) of the coordinator, thus widening the collaborative network of PINK.
SINTEF is a broad, multidisciplinary research organisation with international top‐level expertise in the fields of technology, the natural sciences, medicine, and the social sciences. SINTEF (with SINTEF OCEAN) has been and is heavily involved in projects within the EMMC efforts and is part of the core author team of EMMO. SINTEF provides the link to the EMMC efforts on FAIRification of Materials and will be intimately involved in the cross-domain harmonisation processes.
SINTEF OCAEN will support SINTEF in particular on platform design and the interoperability framework.
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
CNR will participate through the ISMN and ISTEC institutes. ISMN’s core expertise is on multi-scale and data-driven modelling and characterisation of materials, processes and technologies. ISTEC has longstanding experience with running data-intensive SSbD projects with industry and regulatory relevance and will facilitate the collaboration with these projects as well as liaison with industry.
National Technical University of Athens
NTUA is Greece's oldest and most prestigious educational institution in the field of technology, which has played a significant role in the country's scientific, technical, and economic development since its foundation in 1836. The Unit of Process Control and Informatics (UPCI) is a part of the School of Chemical Engineering at NTUA, with extensive experience in chemo, bio, nano, and pharma informatics. UPCI is currently developing and will provide novel computational and AI-enabled SSbD methodologies to PINK.
NovaM is an established SME that focuses on scientific solutions and software. The company applies advanced mathematical techniques to create validated predictive models for big data analysis and materials science. In the PINK project, NovaM will be responsible for the development of the PINK Cloud Platform, as well as contribute to the development of machine learning models and predictive QSAR and read-across models.
Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology
LIST is a Luxembourgish RTO focusing on IT, material and environmental sciences, and space operations. The SUSTAIN Unit of LIST has a large experience in development of NAMs and in safety and life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) group has developed methods and simulation tools to perform social, environmental, and economic sustainability assessment of products, systems and policies and will provide them to PINK as co-leader of WP2. The Environmental Health (EH) group has developed several methods and NAMs for risk assessment, in particular for inhalation toxicology and oral route, with a particular focus on advanced materials, nanomaterials and small chemicals. The EH also provides regulatory support to the Luxembourgish government and represents Luxembourg in several international harmonization committees, such as the OECD WNT, the OECD WPMN, the OECD ESCA, OECD WPRM, EURL ECVAM PARERE network, OECD SSIA, OECD AdMa, and the OECD SGTA, EU-NSC, EU-US CoR, where LIST is cochair of the Human Toxicity group. LIST, through its participation in PARC and other relevant international research activities, will also support alignment with international harmonization efforts and FAIRification of data and sharing.
UH has a strong track record in toxicogenomics data analysis and modelling to study the dose-dependent mechanism of action of chemicals and materials. Within PINK, UH will be involved in the creation of knowledge graphs and data analysis for AOP-based reasoning and chemical impact assessment.
Karlopossesses overall broad expertise with current risk assessment practices, including data FAIRification in major activities like PARC and the AdvancedNano GO FAIR Implementation Network, AOP development and application for and during SSbD.
Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg
The Bio-Nano Group of PLUS has been involved in several EU-funded projects in the field of nanosafety and nanotechnology education (Chair of the WG-A on Education, Training, and Communication of the EU NSC). In PINK, PLUS will act as early-adopter of the PINK approaches itself and facilitate the uptake by industry by planning and support execution of the Case Studies and developing corresponding training and skills development materials and curricula.
BASF is the largest chemical company, with over 111,000 employees. BASF develops new structural and functional materials, dispersions, as well as organic and inorganic additives for a wide range of customers from the automotive and construction, packaging, coatings, home and personal care and agricultural applications. In PINK, BASF supports the project with its expertise in (eco)toxicological hazard and risk assessment as well as sustainability evaluation (including the use of NAMs and IT tools) and will provide Case Studies to challenge and improve the developed computational SSbD workflows.
Energy Materials Industrial Research Initative
EMIRI represents around 60 organisations committed to research, innovation, and competitiveness across the advanced materials industry for the benefit of clean and sustainable energy and mobility. Together with its members, EMIRI will guide and evaluate the developments of PINK and stress test the PINKISH platform in industry-driven Demonstrators.
UoB is a research-intensive top-100 university being involved in PINK with two departments. The Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences has long experience in the development of interoperability approaches and creation of biological and medical ontologies. Additionally, strong expertise in machine-learning and AI methods is available. The School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences has expertise in environmental pollution, ecotoxicology / NAMs development and advanced materials characterisation and spearheaded advanced FAIRification approaches in nanosafety research.
Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt
EMPA is a Swiss RTO for materials science and technology. The Advancing Life Cycle Assessment Group within EMPA’s Technology and Society Laboratory has a long-lasting experience in the further development and the adaptation of the LCA methodology concerning its application in early stages of material and technology development. Within PINK, EMPA contributes to further development of prospective LCA, making use of an AI-based approach.
Seven Past Nine (7P9-SI), a Slovenia-based company specialising in the development and implementation of customisable data management, FAIRification and data sharing solutions, will manage the PINK Project and coordinate its scientific conduct and results through a centralised, streamlined approach with the support of its affiliated entity Seven Past Nine GmbH (7P9-DE).
AcumenIST (AIST), an experienced R&I management provider, project coordinator, and science communication- and dissemination partner with an established track record in policy assessment and -development, will provide support to the scientific and general coordination, lead communication activities and provide support in policy assessment as PINK’s Project Secretary.
Two departments of the Associated Partner University of Birmingham (UoB), Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences and School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, will provide expertise in the project. It will lead together with 7P9-SI, 7P9-DE, and Karonlinska Institute (KI) the integration of biological, medical and toxicology data and safety and sustainability modelling tools into the PINK semantic interoperability and FAIRification. UoB, as the partner responsible for data management in PARC and central in FAIRification tasks of the EU NSC, will also take responsibility for dissemination to achieve uptake of PINK solutions by the communities. This will be complemented by SINTEF and its affiliated entity SINTEF OCEAN (SO), a broad, multidisciplinary research organisation with international top‐level expertise in the fields of technology, the natural sciences, medicine, and the social sciences. SINTEF has been and is heavily involved in projects within the EMMC efforts, (EMMC‐CSA, MarketPlace, OntoTrans, VIPCOAT, OpenModel, Dome4.0 and OntoCommons) and is part of the core author team of EMMO. SINTEF provides the link to the EMMC efforts on FAIRification of Materials and will be intimately involved in the cross-domain harmonisation processes in PINK.
The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), with a long experience in development of hazard, PBK models, and NovaMechanics (NovaM), Cyprus-based SME specialised in development of QSAR models and AI- and cloud-based solution for toxicity assessment) will lead the data integration and data-driven model development for hazard, exposure and risk, and build the SSbD decision support workflow and data visualisation for the PINKISH platform. Additional modelling approaches are coming from the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) for multi-scale physics-based modelling, and from Helsinki University (UH) and KI, both with a strong track record of transcriptomics/epigenetics analysis and integration of knowledge from Adverse Outcome Pathways and OMICS into chemical impact assessment via knowledge graphs.
Life cycle and social life cycle sustainability assessment (LCA and S-LCA) will be provided by the Technology and Society Laboratory at the Associated Partner EMPA, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and UoB. All evidence generated by these modelling tools will then be combined and provided as input to the decision support system and the AI-enabled identification of promising AdMas&Chems development routes and candidates developed by NTUA and UoB.
Combining all the areas (functionality, safety, and sustainability) in jointed work packages will guarantee that they do not stand on their own, but that they are building synergies by combining all methodology, e.g. introduce physics-based modelling and AI in LCA. These developments will be further supported and complemented by researchers from BASF. The technical developments will be guided and constantly evaluated by SSbD experts from Paris Lodron University of Salzburg PLUS, CNR, LIST and UoB, all with long experience in developing innovative approaches for human and environmental safety assessment. They will also support data management and FAIRification, link to stakeholders and to other relevant scientific activities (e.g. PARC).
Guidance on industry requirements with respect to functionality, industrial transferability and practicability of the PINK approach and further testing and evaluation will be done by the industry partners BASF and member of the Energy Materials Industrial Research Initiative EMIRI, who are providing Case Studies and Demonstrators for PINK, respectively. Based on all the results and learnings from these real-world cases, a comprehensive training and skills development programme will be created lead by PLUS.