New national platform provides direct contact for all questions about nanomaterials
A new contact point for start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises and industry has been created to pool scientific and regulatory knowledge and expertise available in Switzerland about nanotechnology. contactpointnano.ch is intended to build bridges between research and innovative application.
Switzerland is one of the world's leading countries in nano-research. There are however plenty of questions when trying to apply the existing knowledge into practice and fully exhaust the potential of nanomaterials, be it the characterization of new materials, safe handling thereof or the creation of national and international regulations. While today, answers for these questions have to be gathered from multiple places, contactpointnano.ch is designed to facilitate access to existing knowledge.
During a two-year pilot phase, contactpointnano.ch will be presided by Empa-scientist Peter Wick. The platform is going to gather and classify the existing scientific, industrial and regulatory knowledge and provide this to enterprises in line with their needs. The contact platform itself will conduct neither safety assessments nor any measurements, but facilitate contact for enterprises to experts, organize training events, and serve as a platform for exchange of information. It is supported by an assembly of experts, headed by Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser and Alke Fink from the Adolphe-Merkle-Institute of the University of Freiburg.
contactpointnano.ch was officially launched last week at the Swiss NanoConvention 2018 at ETH Zurich. This initiative for sustainable promotion of innovation was developed within Swiss nanoresearch, specifically through the National Research Programme "Opportunities and Risks of Nanomaterials" (NFP64), funded by the Swiss National Fund (SNF), and the action plan for nanotechnology. It is supported by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN).
Further information is available at: www.contactpointnano.ch