Active task forces

ECETOC task forces are established by ECETOC’s Scientific Committee in response to an identified need or objective, which typically sit within the framework of its strategy.

The work of an ECETOC task force follows a terms of reference established by the Scientific Committee. Each task force is directed by a chair, who is responsible for assuring the completion of its objectives. And each task force is supported by a scientific officer from the ECETOC Secretariat.

05.10.2023

Assessing risks to biodiversity from exposure to chemicals: where are we and where should we be going?

Background The EU commission is increasingly focusing on restoring and preserving biodiversity, as evidenced by several new strategic documents.  EU Biodiversity strategy, Farm to Fork, and t...
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25.05.2018

Assessing the human health and environmental safety of polymers

Terms of Reference Considering existing risk assessment approaches (e.g. food safety regulation, EU Technical Guidance Document/REACH Guidance, international polymer assessment frameworks), devel...
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05.10.2023

Building knowledge from available degradation simulation studies: analysis of the most influential factors & development of a grouping approach

Background Degradation simulation studies are complex and technically challenging. Additionally, they are used to evaluate a broad range of industrial chemicals, with increasing data/testing requir...
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13.06.2019

Dose Selection Task Force

  Terms of Reference Provide guidance for dose-setting in repeated-dose toxicity studies. In the development of the guidance, the following elements will be included: Critical review of th...
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04.04.2022

Inhalation Toxicological Properties of Low Soluble Particles and Their Relevance for C&L

Background Poorly soluble particulate substances of low toxicity are progressively coming under intense regulatory pressure culminating in unjustified additional testing (see the extensive data pac...
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13.06.2019

Mid-tier approach to aggregated exposure assessment TF

Background There are increasing public and regulatory concerns regarding potential health risks posed by aggregate exposure, i.e. exposure to (the same) substance from multiple sources via multiple r...
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29.04.2019

Moving persistence (P) assessments into the 21st Century: Developing a new paradigm to assess degradation potential of chemicals

Background Recent progress in the scientific understanding of the underlying processes of persistence and degradation has provided an opportunity to develop an improved framework and best practices f...
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17.01.2024

Population relevance for NTOs per EU Endocrine Disruption Criteria – Expert Group

Context Technical guidance is still missing in response to EU scientific criteria for the determination of endocrine disrupting (ED) properties (ECHA & EFSA, 2018), to identify whether observed a...
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06.03.2024

Scientific perspective on in vivo DNT testing

Why Discussions are ongoing regarding the integration of developmental neuroxocixity (DNT) testing in chemical safety assessment in Europe (e.g. via inclusion of DNT cohorts in EOGRT studies (OECD TG...
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17.02.2023

Smart studies: Examine how in vivo studies could provide more information encompassing novel studies (and endpoints)

Background: Extended or “smart” studies can be defined as in vivo studies that employ additional or different endpoints from conventional studies. They fall into 2 categories: • those that...
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07.08.2018

Special T4 Task Force

Background A potential connection between reduction of thyroid hormones, in particular thyroxine (T4), and impaired neuronal (mental) development in children is being discussed. This debate has cause...
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17.02.2023

Staged assessment: Exemplify the staged assessment process by using it to provide more information in low tonnage bands

Background: The current paradigm for identifying data (study) requirements is based upon a surrogate of exposure, namely production volume. This approach offers the potential to provide a fuller asse...
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17.01.2024

Strategies to overcome challenges in aquatic testing of particulate material – Expert Group

Context ECHA developed appendices to the guidance documents on data requirements under REACH specific to nanomaterials, including for guidance R7b (endpoint specific guidance covering ecotoxicity and...
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03.07.2023

Substances that activate various liver receptors as endocrine disruptors

Background The current development of NAMs in the field of endocrine disruption (ED) is very active as the concept of ED is evolving in various areas of toxicology including liver toxicity/xenobiot...
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28.10.2015

Targeted Risk Assessment: TRA Tool Steering Team

Introduction ECETOC initiated its targeted risk assessment (TRA) activity in 2001 and the first public version (v1) of the TRA exposure model was made available in 2004. Since then the TRA tool has c...
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31.10.2023

TRA Task Force – Consumer branch

This Task Force was established to carry out an in-depth evaluation of the TRA Consumer tool. A manuscript entitled An assessment of the ECETOC TRA Consumer tool performance as a screening level to...
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31.10.2023

TRA Task Force – Environment branch

This Task Force is active on a number of initiatives: In the first half of 2019, ECETOC coordinated industry’s contribution to the first stage (IT feasibility study) of the ECHA EUSES update pr...
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31.10.2023

TRA Task Force – Worker branch

This Task Force has been active since 2019 to conduct a review of published validation studies on the TRA Worker tool. A peer-reviewed publication (Urbanus et al., 2020) sets out the initial review...
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04.04.2022

Use of clinical data in identification of respiratory sensitisers

Background RAC has for the first time made a Classification and labelling (CLH) proposal to classify a chemical as a respiratory sensitiser based upon national surveillance data and the presence of...
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