IRISS: The InteRnatIonal ecosystem for accelerating the transition to Safe-and-Sustainable-by-design materials, products and processes

The IRISS project aims to connect, synergize and transform the SSbD community in Europe and globally towards a life cycle thinking where there is a holistic integration of safety, climate neutrality, circularity and functionality of materials, products and processes throughout their lifecycle to meet the EU Green Deal, EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, and UN SDGs. The uniqueness of IRISS is that the consortium is built of core and network partners that represent the top components needed to build an EU-led permanent network (i.e. policy, industry, applied science, innovation and research & education), and that isself-sustaining and international in scope. IRISS responds to the work programme with the following objectives:

1. To develop a state-of-the-art SSbD ecosystem that is supportive for the uptake and utilization of safe-by-design (SbD) and sustainable-by-design (SusbD) strategies by industry, especially SMEs.

2. To contribute to criteria and guiding principles for SusbD development driven by the application of life cycle thinking in materials and product design and in line with ongoing work in European and international initiatives.

3. To establish a structure for a permanent, gender balanced, inclusive, international and sustainable experts network accessible for all relevantstakeholders.

4. To develop SSbD roadmaps encompassing 3 agendas identifying: 1) scientific research needs, 2) skills, competences and education needs, and 3) knowledge and information sharing needs. The roadmaps will be developed in a co-creation and inclusive process for the implementation of SSbD in industry and society including prioritised steps within research, innovation, skill demands, management and governance.

5. To develop a monitoring and evaluation programme that systematically scans for state-of-the-art knowledge, information gaps and translates these into specific R&D questions and governance needs that feed into systematic roadmap updates.