ACEnano knowledge infrastructure (KI) supports the activities related to data collection and method optimisation in the area of physicochemical characterisation of nanomaterials. The KI provides a central place to access harmonised and standardised methods and data, supporting the implementation of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data principles, the reproducibility and documentation process towards the goal of generating reference resources for nanomaterials risk assessment.
The KI includes instances to accommodate data and protocols. The protocols database facilitates adding, sharing and comparing methods in a questionnaire-like format guiding users through the documentation process from starting material identification to sample preparation, measurement and data processing. The data warehouse offers long-term storage of the results in a reusable format that are directly linked to the methods applied.
A public version of the data warehouse is being integrated in the NanoCommons ecosystem. By semantic annotation and linking, this guarantees harmonisation and interoperability with other data sources of the EU NanoSafety Cluster like the eNanoMapper and NanoFASE.
The development of the KI is supported by ACEnano (EU Horizon 2020 NMBP project no. 720952), while its availability to a wider community is assured by the activities in NanoCommons (Horizon 2020 INFRAIA project no. 731032).