Strengthening Europe’s Biotoxin Preparedness – The EMBRACE Project

Accidental or deliberate Biotoxin incidents, including the risk of bioterrorism, increasingly threaten public health and safety. The EMBRACE Research and Innovation Action funded by the Horizon Europe framework programme, is working to establish a coordinated pan-European response. The EU-level critical mass of knowledge and response capacity needs to be integrated and scaled up to protect civilians and responders, enhancing crisis management, minimising human error, and developing and spreading improved practices and technologies.

The powerful enabler of the EMBRACE approach is the creation of a unified European system for managing biotoxin threats that adopts a forward-looking “what-if” problem-solving approach.

EMBRACE:

• Strengthens Europe’s operational response to biotoxin events working to identify and fill the gaps across the European landscape.
• Develops and validates new technologies for portable diagnostic devices and biotoxin detection systems and biomarker-based risk assessment tools.
• Advances innovative protective equipment and field decontaminants.
• Promotes standardisation in technologies and interoperable approaches across borders and across sectors
• Integrates and consolidates scientific, operational, and policy knowledge across Europe.

Within the project, the specific action points are:

• The launch of a Biotoxin Task Force and a pan-European knowledge network.
• The creation of a reference hub for biotoxin information exchange, technical guidance, and collaborative learning.
• The engagement of diverse stakeholders – from forensic labs and civil protection authorities to researchers and first responders
• The preparation of a regulatory and standardisation roadmap aligned with European priorities.
• The development of an active stakeholder community, which will ensure long-term sustainability and supporting paths to commercialisation.

EMBRACE builds on scientific knowledge but makes a deliberate shift toward converting expertise into operational readiness, equipping all actors involved in biotoxin threat management – scientists, responders, policymakers, and citizens – with the tools and information they need.