The RInnovaReNano project

Alessandro ALIMONTI and Isabella DE ANGELIS, Istituto Superiore di Sanità

The nanotechnologies are one of the six Key Enabling Technologies considered fundamental for the European industrial development in the short-medium term. Nanotechnologies open endless application opportunities, from the car market to the suits we wear, from the medical treatments to the energetic sources, last but not least: the food sector. However, the production and the use of nanomaterials (NMs) are tightly connected to their safety analysis and to a correct human and environment risk evaluation. Nanotechnologies and their safe and responsible development represent an ideal collaboration area, where research infrastructures can deliver tools and resources to the enterprises, especially the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that not always are able to develop by themselves.

Lazio Region is characterized by a strong industrial presence (e.g. in the chemical-pharmaceutical sector Italy is the second European country as production value and Lazio is the second at national level), by an important institutional commitment (the Biosciences District) and by the presence of national research infrastructures, as the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità – ISS). Therefore, promote synergy among these regional realities, in a context considered as a research strategic priority, could represent a fundamental tool to support regional technological competitiveness in the short-medium term.

NMs safety is a fundamental research area for the public research system, particularly for the ISS, due to its institutional mission, and this enables to face the suitable development in the use of the nanotechnologies in products in the market (and therefore the implementation in terms of control and regulation). In this regard, ISS has been developed competences and specific tools to deliver the necessary knowledges for NMs risk analysis, in collaboration with the most important scientific institutions and European and international agencies. Therefore, to address the challenges given by NMs, both in the public and in private sectors, ISS is able to provide in-deep knowledge about approaches and operational scientific tools either to scientific and regulatory point of view.

In this frame, Lazio Region has funded the RInnovaReNano project; its main aim is to support the synergy among the regional innovative realities and the ISS for a responsible development and a safe use of NMs. The project, started in the end of 2015, foresees the collaboration between the ISS and the Italian Association for the Industrial Research (AIRI).

The project is a pilot project aimed to deliver a useful contribution for a responsible development of competences and scientific /technological capabilities of the Lazio enterprises involved in research and innovation of NMs and nanotechnologies. Mostly, it will be realized a data bank with the purpose of providing and sharing with industrial and scientific community information related to the safety evaluation of NMs and the state of the art of national and international research activities. Besides, it will integrate the existing data and documentation produced by European Commission and other international institutions about NMs.

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