In times of social change, science has a special responsibility to provide evidence-based results to foster the generation of solutions for the pressing challenges of today, such as climate change or digitalization. To spread knowledge on scientific findings, science communication is inevitable. It intensifies the dialog with the public, objectifies current debates, and provides information about the challenges and opportunities of new scientific developments. For more than 20 years, research has been ongoing worldwide on the safety and risks of nanomaterials. In this paper, the authors describe their experiences with science communication, using the knowledge database www.nanoobjects.info as an example. Already in 2009, the online knowledge base www.nanoobjects.info was established to share scientific results on the safety of nanomaterials with the public in a value-neutral manner. In 2020, advanced materials were added to this information platform to provide understanding and awareness of toxicological data on these materials as early as possible. These knowledge base materials are currently providing safety-relevant information on 30 advanced materials, including nanomaterials, with regards to human health and environmental impact.

In this perspective, the authors give their view on the developments and experiences on communicating on (nano)materials safety. We would like to share our experiences with the scientific community in order to make them useful for future communication activities. We present the long-term work of the science communication projects DaNa, DaNa2.0 and DaNa4.0, running from 2009 to 2023. Starting in the early 2000s with the beginnings of nanotechnology research, communication on the safety of nanomaterials with the public was still very new and faced the projects with many challenges. Today, science communication is indispensable for the dissemination of scientific findings and a fact-based approach like the DaNa “Knowledge Base Materials” creates a trustworthy dialogue with the public. This long-term project series has made a significant contribution to communication on the safety of nanomaterials, perhaps even the largest among publicly funded project series worldwide.

Transparent and reliable communication of the safety of advanced and nanomaterials is an issue that has become increasingly important in recent times. The German initiative DaNa got involved in this topic at an early stage. It is running the Knowledge Base Materials, a web-based information platform on nanomaterials ( www.nanoobjects.info ) for more than 10 years, which is constantly being expanded. Recently, due to emerging developments in materials science, the focus has been expanded from nanomaterials to the variant-rich group of advanced materials, softening the restriction to particles below the 100 m size limit in one dimension to include larger particles with more complex composition. For the Knowledge Base Materials, this broader scope presents a challenge for science communication. In this paper, the authors describe the selection of materials, the workflow, and the quality control that was performed to provide reliable knowledge about the safety of advanced materials to humans and the environment.

Nanotechnologies have reached maturity and market penetration that require nano-specific changes in legislation and harmonization among legislation domains, such as the amendments to REACH for nanomaterials (NMs) which came into force in 2020. Thus, an assessment of the components and regulatory boundaries of NMs risk governance is timely, alongside related methods and tools, as part of the global efforts to optimise nanosafety and integrate it into product design processes, via Safe(r)-by-Design (SbD) concepts. This paper provides an overview of the state-of-the-art regarding risk governance of NMs and lays out the theoretical basis for the development and implementation of an effective, trustworthy and transparent risk governance framework for NMs. The proposed framework enables continuous integration of the evolving state of the science, leverages best practice from contiguous disciplines and facilitates responsive re-thinking of nanosafety governance to meet future needs. To achieve and operationalise such framework, a science-based Risk Governance Council (RGC) for NMs is being developed. The framework will provide a toolkit for independent NMs' risk governance and integrates needs and views of stakeholders. An extension of this framework to relevant advanced materials and emerging technologies is also envisaged, in view of future foundations of risk research in Europe and globally.

Nanomaterials have found their way in our everyday lives via numerous market applications ranging from electronics to the health care system. They offer great innovative potential and are assumed to be beneficial to mankind and the environment. However, consumers, journalists, or regulators often miss reliable and understandable information on nanomaterials and their applications. Communication of scientific facts with the public is an ambitious task as complex issues need to be simplified whilst ensuring scientific correctness. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of nanotechnology, communication on safety aspects is particularly challenging. The DaNa2.0 project (data and knowledge on nanomaterials) is addressing these challenges by collecting and evaluating scientific results. Alongside, a criteria checklist for quality evaluation and management of scientific publications with mandatory and desirable criteria has been developed to ensure a thorough and comprehensive assessment. These evaluated research findings are presented in a worldwide unique knowledge base, correlating material properties and applications, tailored to interested citizens, stakeholders and scientists. The DaNa2.0 platform www.nanoobjects.info offers easy-to-understand, up-to-date and quality-approved information on the 26 most widely used nanomaterials together with FAQs and cross-cutting topics like Nanomedicine. DaNa2.0 is a national project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FKZ 03X0131).

Nanotechnology is closely related to the tailored manufacturing of nanomaterials for a huge variety of applications. However, such applications with newly developed materials are also a reason for concern. The DaNa2.0 project provides information and support for these issues on the web in condensed and easy-to-understand wording. Thus, a key challenge in the field of advanced materials safety research is access to correct and reliable studies and validated results. For nanomaterials, there is currently a continuously increasing amount of publications on toxicological issues, but criteria to evaluate the quality of these studies are necessary to use them e.g., for regulatory purposes. DaNa2.0 discusses scientific results regarding 26 nanomaterials based on actual literature that has been selected after careful evaluation following a literature criteria checklist. This checklist is publicly available, along with a selection of standardized operating protocols (SOPs) established by different projects. The spectrum of information is rounded off by further articles concerning basics or crosscutting topics in nanosafety research. This article is intended to give an overview on DaNa2.0 activities to support reliable toxicity testing and science communication alike.

Scientists as well as ,,normal citizens'' need reliable information for a fact based public discussion on the safety of nanomaterials. Unfortunately not all published articles on nanomaterials safety research are suitable for a risk assessment. In consequence it is necessary to separate suitable from not suitable articles to extract reliable information. This is the aim of the project DaNa 2.0, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), where literature is transparently assessed against a criteria catalogue. Results are published on the project's website.

Background Assessing the impact of new technologies or newly developed substances on our environment is a challenge, even more so if the applied test methods - both toxicological and analytical - are often found to be inadequate and need amendments or even new developments as it is in the case of nanotechnology. This is illustrated by numerous publications in the field of nano-ecotoxicology which although they have been investigating the impact of a number of nanomaterials on several organisms almost never allow for explicit statements on potential hazards of these nanomaterials. This fact not only hampers the knowledge communication to all non-scientists (e.g. consumers) but it also complicates the transfer of the obtained results for other scientists. Results Risk communication is an essential and thus integral part of risk management. For this purpose, the project DaNa2.0 (Data and knowledge on nanomaterials - processing of socially relevant scientific facts) provides processed and hence easy accessible information on the potential safety issues of nanomaterials, mainly via the project website http://www.nanoobjects.info . This will allow various stakeholder groups to get impartial information on potential effects of nanomaterials and help consumers to make informed decisions. DaNa2.0 is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and supported by the Swiss government as well as by the European InterReg IVb programme. The DaNa2.0 team is an interdisciplinary group of scientists from different areas such as materials science, chemistry, biology and human and environmental toxicology. Extending the project team in DaNa2.0 with European experts allows for broadening of the existing knowledge portfolio by adding further cross-cutting topics and increasing our expertise, e.g. in the field of environmental exposure and fate. Conclusions On the project website http://www.nanoobjects.info , a unique link between nanomaterials in practical applications (e.g. environmental remediation) and their potential impacts is provided. The focus of this publication will be on all issues with environmental relevance, which are addressed in the ‘Knowledge Base Nanomaterials’ on the project website. These issues include environmental exposure and behaviour of nanomaterials and nano-ecotoxicology.

AbstractUnter dem Motto „Funktionale Supramolekulare Systeme ‐ Von der Synthese zur Anwendung”︁ trafen sich am 13. und 14. Mai in Frankfurt a.M. über 170 Fachleute unter reger Beteiligung der Industrie. Über 70 Arbeitsgruppen aus dem Umfeld der Synthese und Untersuchung supramolekularer Systeme mit Nanometerdimensionen stellten ihre Projektideen vor und verabredeten weitere Gespräche über eine konkrete interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit.