International Cooperation

HBM4EU – European Human Biomonitoring Initiative

The HBM4EU initiative was a European Joint Programme (EJP) that aimed to coordinate and advance human biomonitoring in Europe (2017-2022). The consortium comprised the European Environment Agency and 42 institutions from 30 European countries (24 Member States) and more than 70 Linked Third Parties (LTP). The programme was supported by the European Commission through a contribution up to 70% of the total eligible costs.

FCT developed its activities in HBM4EU as the Contact Point for the Portuguese National Hub on Human Biomonitoring that was established under the HBM4EU programme. As the National Hub Contact Point (NHCP), FCT coordinated the responses to the requests of the HBM4EU workpackage leaders, contributing to the respective activities. Together with the other national institutions composing the National Hub, FCT has been co-organizing the Workshops on Human Biomonitoring in Portugal.

Programme Objectives

The general objectives of the programme were:

To assess human exposure to chemicals in Europe, to better understand the associated health impacts and to improve chemical risk assessment.
To build capacities to establish a European Human Biomonitoring Platform, with the aim of harmonizing human biomonitoring activities in the involved countries so that comparable European data on human exposure to chemicals are generated.
To establish a dialogue with policy makers to ensure that the results can be used to support the development of policies, to evaluate existing policies and to design measures to reduce exposure to toxic chemicals.

Important Links

Portuguese participation in HBM4EU

Portugal participated in this programme through the following institutions:

Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Programme Owner/Manager, signatory
National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA), Programme Manager, signatory
Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), Programme Owner, non-signatory
Directorate-General of Health (DGS), Programme Owner, non-signatory, Linked Third Party
Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon (FMUL), Linked Third Party
Lisbon School of Health Technology (ESTeSL), Linked Third Party

NATIONAL HUB – PORTUGAL

Each country had to establish the conditions allowing the development of a National Hub in Human Biomonitoring, which responded to the requests of the HBM4EU workpackage leaders. In Portugal, the National Hub under the HBM4EU project was composed of the institutions mentioned above and aimed to accompany and manage the portuguese participation in HBM4EU, to pave the way for the creation and development of the basis of a national platform of human biomonitoring.

National Hub Contact Point – Portugal (under HBM4EU):
Rita Cavaleiro (FCT)

Participant countries

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom.