TYOTERVEYSLAITOS

Their core work

The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) is Finland's national research institute specializing in workplace safety, occupational exposure science, and healthy ageing in work environments. In the H2020 context, they focus heavily on nanosafety — assessing risks of engineered nanomaterials and graphene, developing safe-by-design frameworks, and building computational tools to reduce reliance on animal testing. They also contribute significant expertise in human biomonitoring, tracking how chemical and occupational exposures affect worker health across European populations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early H2020 period (2015–2018), FIOH focused on foundational nanomaterial risk assessment — building governance frameworks, hazard prediction tools, and computational toxicology methods through projects like caLIBRAte and SmartNanoTox, while establishing their biomonitoring credentials via HBM4EU. From 2019 onward, their work shifted toward applied safe-by-design approaches (SAbyNA, NanoInformaTIX) and expanded into new exposure domains like micro/nanoplastics (PLASTICHEAL) and the working life exposome (EPHOR). The evolution shows a clear arc from understanding nano-risks to operationalizing safety frameworks, with growing emphasis on real-world occupational health impacts.

FIOH is moving from hazard characterization toward integrated exposure science — combining nanomaterial safety, plastics health effects, and occupational biomonitoring into a broader worker-health-and-environment agenda.

How they like to work

FIOH operates exclusively as a consortium partner — they have not coordinated any of their 16 H2020 projects but are a highly sought-after specialist contributor. With 446 unique partners across 36 countries, they connect into very large European consortia (the Graphene Flagship alone involves hundreds of partners), acting as a trusted safety and occupational health node. Their repeat presence in nanosafety projects suggests they are a go-to partner when consortia need credible risk assessment expertise.

FIOH has collaborated with 446 unique partners across 36 countries, making them one of the most broadly connected occupational health institutes in Europe. Their network spans from large flagship initiatives (Graphene Flagship) to focused nanosafety clusters, giving them visibility across both materials science and public health communities.

What sets them apart

FIOH sits at a rare intersection: they combine deep nanosafety expertise with occupational health authority, meaning they can assess not just whether a material is hazardous but how real workers in real factories are actually exposed. This makes them uniquely valuable for any consortium developing advanced materials (nanomaterials, graphene, 2D materials) that needs credible safety validation before market entry. Their national institute status in Finland also gives regulatory weight to their risk assessments that a university lab typically cannot provide.

Highlights from their portfolio

• HBM4EU
  Their largest funded project (EUR 743K) — a landmark pan-European human biomonitoring initiative that positioned FIOH at the centre of chemical exposure science across the continent.
• PLASTICHEAL
  Their most recent project (2021-2025, EUR 709K) signals a strategic expansion into micro/nanoplastics health effects — a rapidly growing regulatory and public concern area.
• GrapheneCore3
  Part of the EU's largest-ever research initiative (Graphene Flagship), where FIOH provides the critical occupational safety perspective for scaling graphene from lab to factory.