On November 12, 2019, the European Union (EU) Observatory for Nanomaterials (EUON) published a Nanopinion entitled “The innovator, the regulator and the citizen — building public trust through transparent, empowered and safe innovation.” Carlos Eduardo Lima da Cunha, the European Commission (EC), explains how the EU is supporting safe by design approaches to new technologies such as nanomaterials to deliver safer products to the market. Lima da Cunha notes that the EU has monitored and funded the development of nanomaterials for more than 15 years, with a special focus on understanding their potential harm to human health and the environment. According to Lima da Cunha, it is time to apply that knowledge to use and design nanomaterials in a safe and functional way. Lima da Cunha states: “In a society where economy, industry and society will be more closely integrated and the trend is to have an ever-increasing number of personalised products and services, the development of any new and advanced (nano)materials in Europe will rely heavily on work done in innovation testbeds using safe by design approaches to deliver faster and safer products to Europeans.”
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