Building infrastructure and human capacities
Trainings
PARC is committed to building and strengthening interdisciplinary research capacities across its stakeholder and partner community. This includes promoting knowledge exchange, contributing to continuous skills development, and increasing capacities to apply new tools and methodologies emerging from the partnership. By strengthening these capacities, PARC empowers its community to tackle current and new challenges in the field of chemical risk assessment.
To achieve this, a dedicated online survey is conducted every two years (2023, 2025, and 2027) to identify the evolving training needs of partners and stakeholders. Based on the results, PARC develops a flexible and dynamic training plan that includes training courses and new online resources, designed to respond to emerging priorities and reflect ongoing scientific developments. This adaptive approach enables the delivery of targeted, timely, and relevant training activities that support the uptake of new tools, methods, and knowledge across the community.
In addition to implementing the training plan, PARC actively promotes staff exchange to foster hands-on knowledge transfer and skill development, and maps external training opportunities and relevant online resources, which are shared through the PARC website and integrated into the repository of educational and learning materials for wider dissemination.
PARC Traning plan
The findings of the 2023 training needs institutional online survey led to the development of a comprehensive training plan for the first training cycle (October 2023 to October 2025). The plan was designed to cover the different knowledge domains identified by the survey respondents and includes a combination of in-person and online training courses, alongside the creation of open-access online resources.
According to planned, the PARC training needs survey was relaunched in early 2025, first targeting institutions, and then individual participants. The results of this expanded survey (to be published soon), will serve as the foundation for shaping the training strategy for PARC’s second training cycle, covering the period from November 2025 to October 2027.
In addition to the dedicated training courses developed within PARC, a variety of external training opportunities are also listed on PARC website. These can be found under the “Events” section, covering a range of risk assessment related topics. Please note that while these courses are promoted on the PARC website for wider visibility, they are organised and managed independently of the PARC project. If you are interested in these courses or have any questions, please directly contact the course organisers.
The information on available training is regularly updated. If you are aware of any additional training events that could be of interest to the PARC community, please share the information with us by completing this form ↗.
Repository of learning and educational materials
To support professionals in building the skills needed to address emerging challenges in chemical risk assessment in flexible and cost-effective way, a dedicated repository of learning and educational materials has also been established. This central resource brings together training materials developed within PARC and selected materials from external sources.
Designed for a broad audience, including researchers, policymakers, industry professionals, students and citizens, the repository offers materials suited to different levels of expertise. A smart filtering system makes it easy to navigate the collection and find resources that match users' specific interests, needs, and skill levels.
The repository is updated regularly and will continue to grow with the addition of new online training resources, including videos, reading materials, webinar recordings, and e-learning tools. Users are also encouraged to contribute by suggesting additional materials via this form.
Staff exchange
PARC also facilitates staff exchange for on-site, hands-on training, to promote an efficient and effective transfer of skills, knowledge and methodologies among project partners, enhancing collaboration and strengthening expertise across institutions.
If your laboratory or research group is available to host external staff, please fill in this simple survey ↗ specifying some institutional details, your capacities, specific requirements for visiting staff, and working language(s).
If you are interested in participating in the staff exchange programme as a trainee, simply submit an application to any of the available opportunities. If you fulfil the minimum requirements for exchange, as established by the Host Lab, you will be contacted and arrangements will be initiated.
If you are Interested in visiting some other labs not listed on the website or are unsure which PARC institution would be suit a specific training topic, please contact us directly (carla [dot] trindade
insa-min-saude [dot] pt). We will gladly assist you in identifying an appropriate host within a broader PARC network, and facilitate the necessary contacts.
Please note the following:
Applicants are responsible for their own expenses. Some external funding opportunities are listed here, but it is the applicant’s responsibility to manage these applications.
Both hosts and applicants must be involved in PARC, and
In cases where multiple candidates meet the host’s requirements, placement will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
For any proposals or contributions to PARC training activities, please contact Carla Trindade Costa (carla [dot] trindadeinsa [dot] min-saude [dot] pt), João Paulo Teixeira (joao [dot] teixeirainsa [dot] min-saude [dot] pt) and Mariana Bessa Pinto (mariana [dot] bessainsa [dot] min-saude [dot] pt) from the Portuguese National Institute of Health, Portugal.