Collaborative decision support and documentation in chemical safety with KnowSEC

To protect the health of human and environment, the European Union implemented the REACH regulation for chemical substances. REACH is an acronym for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals. Under REACH, the authorities have the task of assessing chemical substances, especially those that might pose a risk to human health or environment. The work under REACH is scientifically, technically and procedurally a complex and knowledge-intensive task that is jointly performed by the European Chemicals Agency and member state authorities in Europe. The assessment of substances under REACH conducted in the German Environment Agency is supported by the knowledge-based system KnowSEC, which is used for the screening, documentation, and decision support when working on chemical substances. The software KnowSEC integrates advanced semantic technologies and strong problem solving methods. It allows for the collaborative work on substances in the context of the European REACH regulation. We discuss the applied methods and process models and we report on experiences with the implementation and use of the system.