Chemical information structures form the basis for managing chemical safety information, so this initative could be an important development when combined with GHS.

- Ralph

A New Report is OUT from the The WorldFAIR Chemistry Team: Digital recommendations for Chemistry FAIR data policy and practice

https://zenodo.org/record/7887283

The overarching goal of the WorldFAIR Chemistry Work Package (WP03) is to support the use of chemical data standards in research workflows, between and across disciplines. This will enable downstream data reuse through provision of practical direction and resources. The aim of this deliverable is to establish a framework that can be used by policymakers and developers of services and tools to support FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) reporting of chemical data. Specific objectives are to highlight applicability of existing standards at a practical level and to identify gaps that need to be addressed to achieve wider data re-use goals.

This report reviews some of the critical and persistent issues around documentation of chemical information. These were identified through a series of webinar panels on the theme: “What is a chemical?”, and through other conferences, workshops, and ongoing collaborative projects run as part of the WorldFAIR project and by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC, the lead organisation of WP03).

Chemicals are everywhere and every tangible object has a chemical nature that impacts its use and behaviour in the environment. As chemical data and chemical principles are increasingly applied broadly across disciplines, the range of representations and contexts for chemical substances and data become more diverse and less easy to precisely define. Molecular entities are fundamental to our understanding of material properties and underlie the configuration of many chemical data models and resources, but it is also critical to look beyond the molecule to particles, surfaces, and states, and their behaviour under different conditions. Few chemistry-related disciplines have mature standards, and better practices in data reporting and interoperability are needed across the board, in both industry and academia. This will allow sharing and reuse requirements to be met in relation to international chemicals management policies and sustainable development goals.

This report additionally considers documentation requirements to achieve FAIR sharing of chemistry data in ways that are Reliable, Interpretable, Processable, and Exchangeable (RIPE), and with minimal loss of quality. Increasing the level of consumable FAIR data depends upon documenting data upstream of sharing to ensure that meaning and quality can be assessed and reassessed appropriately. It is not enough for data objects to be accessible; data need to be accompanied by metadata which provide the contextual information required to enable interoperability and reuse. Fully articulating the scope, structure, and exposure of metadata is critical to enable broader technical mechanisms for programmatic data exchange. The RIPE framework can help research ecosystems across sectors to focus on information requirements, resources and practices required to facilitate provision of data that are mature for sharing, and fully AI-ready across a broad range of use cases. Consistent and co!
mprehensive communication of existing and emerging standards and resources is an important priority to effectively address the challenges confronting meaningful and effective reuse of chemistry data.

more at URL above

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