Chemical Risk Assessment Hub

PARC is developing the Chemical Risk Assesssment (CRA) Hub which will be a data platform to facilitate management of PARC-reused or generated data in line with FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable), and to support the chemical risk assessment process. The PARC CRA Hub will support data publishers, data owners, and CRA experts, from both research and regulatory sectors.

The PARC CRA Hub builds upon and enhances the existing CRA data resources and standards. It will have full complementarity and interoperability with the existing regulatory and FAIR data resources and initiatives, supporting the translation of regulatory research into formats suitable for use in CRA in practice.

The PARC CRA Hub will provide tools and interfaces to find, visualise, and access existing CRA resources, such as PARC-reused or generated data, data providers, laboratory capacities, or best-fit repositories for newly generated data.

Data Hub will be available to its users free of charge. Expected availability of first version witch interactive dashboards of available CRA relevant resources is during September 2025. 

The architecture of the hub

PARC CRA Hub adopts a modular architecture. End of 2023, the first two modules are in development: the metadata service module, and the CRA data landscape dashboard module.

Starting with a browser for environmental and human biomonitoring data resources, and metadata, the hub will later be expanded to include other PARC research domains and data types.

Onwards, modules containing FAIR enabling tools, application programming interfaces (APIs), or connectors to external repositories will be developed. This incremental approach ensures that the PARC CRA Hub builds out a holistic CRA ontology with interlinked domains, rather than individual, siloed domains that do not interact.

Ensuring future data access

The development and maintenance of the PARC CRA Hub require investment of personnel, time, and financial resources during the planned seven years of the partnership. But what happens next? From the beginning of the partnership, PARC has been aware of the importance of discussing and preparing its sustainability and contribution to the future of CRA in Europe. Therefore, PARC explores collaboration with existing and newly developed research infrastructures within the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) such as EIRENE ↗, BBMRI ↗, or ELIXIR ↗, to explore capacities, tools, and options to ensure the long-term sustainability of the PARC CRA Hub.

All thematic areas

Risk assessments

Find out how we monitor chemicals guided by regulatory challenges both in humans and in the environment, observing different sources, chemical fates and exposure pathways.

Learn new approaches and methods of health assessment and provide data to fill gaps in knowledge on poorly characterised contaminants or new emerging hazards while promoting the use of innovative methods.

Tools & resources

PARC is developing the Chemical Risk Assesssment Hub that will be a service to provide FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) to the different stakeholders.

Learn how the PARC Early Warning System helps protect your health and the environment by spotting harmful chemicals early, before they become a bigger problem.

Come to know how we are catalysing the shift towards safe and sustainable chemicals, materials and products to to minimize negative impacts on human health and the environment.

Building infrastructure and human capacities

Check out how we work towards increased harmonisation of quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) in chemical analysis and toxicity testing to ensure that monitoring and hazard data generated in PARC are reliable, consistent, and comparable.

Get to know the European laboratories that belong to our existing network as well as the new recruitments in order to maintain and to strengthen monitoring capacities.

Check our mapping and cataloguing environmental (air, water/sediment, soil, biota, drinking water, food & feed) monitoring networks as well as the gaps and opportunities for future alignment.

Stay up to date on the latest trainings in the field of environmental monitoring and biomonitoring of chemicals to improve the overall quality of chemical risk assessment and management globally.

PARC has the ambition to make 70-80% of PARC-generated data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). This requires extensive technical development to provide the infrastructure needed, as well as training of FAIR implementers to support PARC partners and projects to implement the FAIR workflows being developed. Discover our progress in building FAIR skills and capacity here.

Science to policy

Explore how PARC’s Rapid Response Mechanism tackles urgent health and environmental challenges.

We are connecting PARC partners and external stakeholders, from both the research and the regulatory domains, to apply the long-term visions of the European policies related to chemical safety.

PARC is inviting the whole community of professionals in chemical risk assessment in Europe and worldwide to share their knowledge and ideas on the PARCopedia platform launched in November 2023. PARCopedia is a not-for-profit, ad-free knowledge management and social media environment.

PARC will develop a series of strategic roadmaps guiding step-by-step to the uptake of innovative science into the regulatory practice of chemical risk assessment in the EU. The first one will be NGRAroute, an activity to implement Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA) in all major legislations on chemicals in the EU.

See the Next Generation Risk Assessment in action for the benefit of human and the environment.