The German PARC National Hub

In order for PARC to make an impact in the entire European area, also expertise from outside of the PARC consortium shall be taken into account. To expand the expertise of the PARC partners, separate expert panels have to be established in each participating EU member state. The establishment of these so-called National Hubs (NHs) as well as the National Hub Contact Points (NHCPs) is stipulated in the PARC Grant Agreement.

With the help of the NHs and NHCPs, interdisciplinary networks of national risk assessors and regulatory organisations shall be built within the partnership in order to jointly and sustainably set scientific and innovative priorities in the risk assessment of chemicals.

The NHs represent national networks of experts from relevant authorities and ministries (= regulatory organisations and policy makers), academic and non-academic research institutions as well as thematically relevant stakeholders (chemical industry, NGOs, citizens' associations, ...) in the field of risk assessment of chemicals and related research. The primary task of the PARC-NH is to discuss results from PARC and to bring further national needs, knowledge and issues into the partnership.

The NHCPs act as the main points of contact on PARC issues at national level (both from PARC itself and from PARC-NH members and the public) and are in close contact with each other (coordinated through the National Hub Contact Point Coordination Team (NHCC)). It is the task of the NHCPs to actively exchange national experiences, priorities and relevant issues within the European NHCP network. In this way, national as well as general needs and priorities are to be communicated to PARC and important issues in PARC can be discussed across committees and countries.

The German PARC National Hub (PARC-NH) is a national advisory body that brings together the scientific expertise of the German PARC Grant Signatories (GS) and Affiliated Entities (AEs) as well as non-PARC associated research institutions, relevant regulatory authorities and ministries and other stakeholders such as the chemical industry.

The task of the PARC-NH is to discuss PARC results at the national level and to bring current needs, issues and knowledge into the partnership. Furthermore, the PARC-NH is intended to communicate PARC results to the public. To this end, among others, it is planned to organise one of the bi-annual PARC-NH meetings in combination with public symposia or conferences on relevant PARC-NH topics. In addition, the PARC-NH will offer stakeholder dialogues and workshops as needed to publicly discuss emerging issues and to share knowledge and methods. Furthermore, information material is to be made available. 

In Germany, there are two Grant Signatory authorities that have signed the grant agreement of the EU PARC partnership, the BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and the Federal Environment Agency (UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency). They address different topics in the consortium: the BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment is responsible for "hazard assessment", the UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency for the area of “human biomonitoring and environment”. Other German partner institutions (Affiliated Entities) in PARC are assigned to these two authorities respectively.

The PARC-NH is divided into two thematic sub-hubs. The sub-hub "Human Tox" deals with and discusses questions on human-relevant toxicology, human exposure and risk assessment under the technical responsibility of the BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. The sub-hub "Human Biomonitoring/Environment", under the technical responsibility of the UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency, discusses issues relating to environmental risk assessment and monitoring as well as human biomonitoring (HBM). The cooperation of the sub-hubs in the German National Hub bridges the research areas of human and environmental toxicology, thus seeking to further improve the protection of human health and the environment.

BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency jointly manage the German National Hub and fulfil the function of the German NHCP. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the coordination of the PARC-NH and the NHCP by BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency within the framework of a collaborative project (funding reference 01DT21043A).

Each German partner institution (Affiliated Entity) in PARC nominates one scientist as a member of the PARC-NH. In addition, selected experts who are not themselves part of the EU partnership are nominated as members of the PARC-NH on the basis of their respective personal scientific expertise. All PARC-NH members are assigned to one of the thematic sub-hubs according to their affiliation and expertise. The PARC-NH also include selected staff from BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency who are involved in PARC and in some cases form an important interface with the work of other PARC bodies, such as the PARC Grant Signatory Board (GSB) and the PARC Management Board (MB).

Representatives from the relevant ministries are also represented as permanent guests in the PARC-NH and thus also form an interface to the work of the PARC Governing Board (GB). In this case, these are primarily the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity (BMLEH), which is responsible for the supervision of BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), which is responsible for the supervision of UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency and, in limited areas, also of BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment.

An overview of the tasks and structure of PARC-NH is presented Download:herePARC National Hub Poster (PDF, 1 B, not accessible).

As mentioned above, the “Human Tox” sub-hub of PARC-NH deals with PARC-relevant issues and topics in human-relevant toxicology, human exposure and risk assessment of chemicals. The expertise within this advisory body is broadly diversified in this area, so that a solid basis for consultation and discussion is also ensured across work packages (WP) at national level. The majority of the sub-hub members from assigned Affiliated Entities are involved in the work of PARC work package (WP) 5 "Hazard Assessment".

The following people are involved in the "Human Tox" sub-hub:

Further information on the sub-hub "Human Biomonitoring/Environment" can be found External Link:here on the UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency website.

At the hybrid meeting, project results from PARC were discussed and new PARC-relevant topics were identified. The wide-ranging expertise of the PARC National Hub in Germany is made up of the specialist knowledge of relevant authorities and stakeholders in the field of national risk assessment of chemicals. 

This includes representatives of the BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency, PARC partner institutions and external experts. The BMELshort forGerman Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, BMUV and BAuA expand the committee's expertise as permanent guests. 

For this dialogue, the BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and UBAshort forGerman Environment Agency invited scientists, stakeholders and representatives from politics to the 2nd German PARC Stakeholder Dialogue. 

The dialogue highlighted the current scientific status of chemical mixtures and the regulatory context from the perspective of human and environmental toxicology. Regulatory framework conditions, challenges and opportunities were presented and discussed interactively with the participants.

For the report of the 2nd German PARC Stakeholder Dialogue “Risk Assessment of Chemical Mixtures”, click Download:herereport-2nd-parc-stakeholder-dialogue.pdf (PDF, 620 B, not accessible).