NATIONAL HEALTH LABORATORY SERVICES

Their core work

South Africa's National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) is the country's primary public health diagnostics and reference laboratory network. Within H2020, they contribute specialized toxicology, risk assessment, and virology expertise to European research consortia. Their core contribution lies in nanomaterial safety evaluation — particularly hazard prediction, exposure modelling, and risk governance for engineered nanomaterials. They also support global virus archiving and pandemic preparedness infrastructure.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

NHLS entered H2020 with a split focus: global virus archiving (EVAg, 2015) alongside early nanomaterial risk assessment work (caLIBRAte, 2016). From 2019 onward, they concentrated almost exclusively on nanosafety, with a clear shift from traditional hazard assessment toward data-driven approaches — nanoinformatics, safe-by-design principles, and computational prediction tools. Their keyword profile moved from broad terms like "control banding" and "integrated risk assessment" to more specialized concepts like "nanomaterial fingerprints," "nanomaterial cloud platform," and "governance frameworks."

NHLS is deepening into computational and informatics-driven nanosafety, positioning themselves as a Southern Hemisphere partner for digital risk assessment and regulatory science.

How they like to work

NHLS never coordinates H2020 projects — they join as a participant or third party in large, well-funded consortia. With 109 unique partners across 32 countries from just 5 projects, they consistently operate in very large international networks. This suggests they are valued as a specialist contributor bringing non-European perspective and laboratory capacity rather than driving project direction.

Despite only 5 projects, NHLS has collaborated with 109 partners across 32 countries, reflecting their participation in large-scale EU consortia. Their South African base gives them a distinctive position as a Global South partner in predominantly European networks.

What sets them apart

NHLS offers something rare in H2020 nanosafety research: a major public health laboratory system from the Global South with direct regulatory and practical experience in a developing-economy context. For consortium builders, they bring geographic diversity (important for EU proposal scoring), real-world laboratory infrastructure outside Europe, and a perspective on risk governance that extends beyond developed-world regulatory frameworks.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Gov4Nano
  Focused on translating nanosafety science into governance frameworks and regulatory guidance, demonstrating NHLS's policy-relevant expertise.
• NanoSolveIT
  Their largest funded project (EUR 100,000), building a nanoinformatics cloud platform for predictive toxicology — represents their strongest computational nanosafety contribution.
• EVAg
  A major global virus archive infrastructure project, showing NHLS's breadth beyond nanosafety and their role in pandemic preparedness.