Advancing Data Infrastructure for Chemical Risk Assessment and Exposome Research: The GENASIS Platform in the Context of FAIR Principles

Excellence in exposome research and chemical risk assessment (CRA) relies on robust capacities, innovative technologies, and skilled human resources. Research infrastructures are vital in providing access to these resources and driving innovation. Over recent decades, Europe has developed numerous research infrastructures, including EIRENE RI (Research Infrastructure for Environmental Exposure Assessment in Europe), the first EU research infrastructure dedicated to the human exposome. EIRENE RI aims to integrate interdisciplinary data, offering harmonized workflows and services to users across various sectors. Other initiatives, such as the Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC), work on advancing harmonization and innovation in CRA.

A robust data infrastructure aligned with FAIR data and Open Science principles is essential for these research infrastructures. Mapping and evaluating the current data landscape is a critical step toward enhancing FAIR implementation and machine actionability. This contribution highlights existing strategies for harmonizing and managing global data on chemical occurrences developed through two decades, using the use case of the GENASIS information system.

GENASIS information is a platform originally developed for storing, harmonizing, and visualizing global environmental monitoring data. Over time, it has expanded to include data on chemical occurrences in indoor environments, consumer products, and human matrices. Today, it hosts over 3 million harmonized records on more than 800 chemicals, described with rich metadata, and it is continuously expanding. This enables the identification of gaps, locality comparisons, and evaluation of global trends in chemical concentrations in the environemnt and humans. GENASIS also serves as a model and sister database for the Global Monitoring Plan Data Warehouse of the Stockholm Convention and supports the United Nations Environment Programme in managing environmental and human monitoring data to evaluate the effectiveness of global treaties on chemical pollutants. GENASIS’ ongoing development and associated services contribute to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in the Czech Republic, EIRENE RI and PARC initiatives.

This contribution evaluates GENASIS in terms of FAIR principles, detailing its current status, roadmap for further FAIR implementation, efforts to enhance machine actionability, and challenges encountered. The discussion is framed within the broader context of initiatives such as PARC, EIRENE RI, and EOSC CZ, emphasizing their role in advancing exposome research and CRA in Europe.

Acknowledgement: This project was supported from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 857560 (CETOCOEN Excellence), and from the Horizon Europe programme under grant agreements No 101057014 (PARC) and 101079789 (EIRENE PPP). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA) or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authorities can be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. Authors thank the RECETOX Research Infrastructure (No LM2023069) financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.