Final safety assessment report for HI-ACCURACY

Final safety assessment report for general public & HI-ACCURACY consortium members

Project Deliverable by BNN
Project: HI-ACCURACY (High-ACCuracy printed electronics down to µm size, for Organic Large Area Electronics (OLAE) Thin Film Transistor (TFT) and Display Applications – EU Grant Agreement No 862410)
Date of publication: October 2023
Area: Design for Technology Development (DfTD)
BNN team involvement: Susanne Resch, Clemens Wolf, Matiss Reinfelds

This project report summarizes the safety and sustainability assessment conducted by BNN within the HI-ACCURACY project. It begins with a concise introduction to the principles of risk assessment for working with chemical substances, built upon the ‘Safe-by-Design’ (SbD) concept report developed in the first year of the project (confidential, exclusively for consortium members).

Following this, we offer a brief overview of the safety findings from each relevant work package, with more detailed information available in the corresponding public reports.

The document also refers to the topic of nanosafety and outlines the framework for ‘Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design’ (SSbD), a key area of expertise for BNN. We further reflect on insights gathered during project-internal workshops on sustainability and SSbD that were led by BNN.

Next, we present a comprehensive assessment of the project’s ethical considerations, concluding with a set of valuable recommendations. Chief among these is the call for the development of accessible tools that empower scientists to incorporate safety and sustainability into their daily work. We also urge researchers to proactively seek education and training in these areas. Additionally, the report underscores the importance of conducting continuous safety, sustainability, and ethical assessments in all research projects, reinforcing the importance of responsible scientific practices.

This report was supported by previous work performed within the scope of Hi-Response (“Innovative High Resolution Electro-Static printing of Multifunctional Materials”, H2020 NMP-PILOTS-Programme) and INSPIRED (“INdustrial Scale Production of Innovative nanomateRials for printEd Devices”, H2020 NMP-PILOTS-Programme). Further consultation with colleagues from the project Gov4Nano (“Implementation of Risk Governance: meeting the needs of nanotechnology”, H2020 NMBP-Programme) and the European NanoSafety Cluster (NSC), including its different Working Groups, enhanced interdisciplinary and international collaboration in the field of nanosafety and Safe-by-Design.

All project partners provided feedback and input through a dedicated questionnaire, bilateral discussions and interactive workshops during consortium meetings.