On 19 June 2026, the PLANETS consortium organised a virtual internal training session on the Safety Dimension within Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD), as the first of a series of trainings in this topic. The session began with basic background on the safety dimension in SSbD, as well as the importance to assess both hazard and exposure. It provided an overview of the safety information provided by safety data sheets of individual materials/substances (MSDS). It navigated through hazard databases, including the Substance Information System (SIS) as an example, as well as grouping and read across approaches. Finally, the training provided insight into the role of regulatory toxicology and toxicologists in their daily praxis.

Highlights of the workshop

Martin Himly (PLUS), leader of the training work package within PLANETS, started the training session by introducing the basics of the safety dimension in SSbD: what is safety, definition of risk, when I am at risk, how exposure determines risk, factors that impact the toxicity of chemicals and materials, and relevant terminology related to safety. He also referred to Paracelsus (1493–1541), a Swiss-Austrian physician and alchemist, widely recognized as the father of toxicology, as he revolutionized the field by shifting the understanding of poisons away from superstition, establishing the foundation of modern chemical therapy and scientific toxicology. The training also offered simple interactive exercises, involving participants (using Mentimeter), to test the knowledge of the audience regarding the interpretation of toxicity of different materials.

Together with Joséphine Steck (CEA), the audience dived into chemical risk assessment and risk mitigation, the general prevention principles to mitigate a risk and the stop principles. This also covered hazard of chemical products, like identification and communication tools, essential elements of MSDS with hazard and precautionary statements, symbols, signal words, etc. The training also introduced the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) European regulation. Jointly with Cécile Philippot (CEA) and supported by Beatriz Alfaro Serrano (BNN), they guided the participants through an interactive exercise (via Mural) on information content that can be retrieved from MSDS aiming to decide on the most appropriate / less hazardous options from an offered set of paints. This was conducted by using the information provided complemented by the hazard pictograms and the labelling information.

Susan Dekkers (TNO) then introduced the participants to publicly available hazard databases, including the Substance Information System (SIS), explaining why and how to use them, and introducing concepts such as occupational exposure limits, grouping, and read-across approaches for assessing substances.

The final part of the training, provided by James Cairns (BASF), focused on the work of regulatory toxicologists in industry, highlighting their role in chemical safety assessments, regulatory compliance, dossier preparation, and the development of testing strategies that support both human health and environmental protection.

The following PLANETS partners are involved in the preparation of the entire Safety training series: Szymon Zdybel, Anita Sosnowska (QSAR Lab), Ayse Ay, James Cairns, Philipp Demuth (BASF), Cécile Philippot, Joséphine Steck, Nienke Ruijter, Marie Carrier (CEA), Susan Dekkers, Neeraj Shandilya (TNO), Poornima Nagesh (Radboud University), Beatriz Alfaro Serrano (BNN), and Mario Wenger, Sabine Hofer, Norbert Hofstätter, Martin Himly (PLUS).

Training Materials – In preparation

Building on the insights from this internal training, PLANETS has developed external training materials for the Safety dimension of SSbD. These materials include:

• Presentation slides (tba)
• Interactive exercise materials (Mural) (tba)
• Recording of the training session (tba)

All training materials are available in the PLANETS community on Zenodo under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, which allows for redistribution and reuse with proper credit to the creators. You can access them here (LINK TO BE ADDED), with DOI: xxx (tba).

Additionally, all recorded sessions can be viewed on the PLANETS YouTube channel.