WP4 will structure the process towards development of systems-based ERA by:

• Reaching common understanding of ‘critical terms’ for ERA such as systems-based, regulatory needs, protectiveness, risk assessment and systems-based protection goals. These will be used as internal benchmarks for the project and among involved stakeholders to facilitate productive dialogue in close relationship with WP1 and rooted in the SYBERAC case studies.

• Increasing system-understanding of hierarchical levels of ERA-based decisions (from EU-level to lowest level, i.e. use cases of chemicals) – among stakeholders and decision makers.

• Identifying priority decision contexts and actors with the highest potential for improvement of environmental protection supported by systems-based ERA approaches.

• Identify key chemical and environmental drivers of impact on biodiversity.

• Identify concepts and examples of holistic protection goals to support transition towards systems-based ERA.

• Contributing to a paradigm-shift of ERA by exploring the reframing of current ERA and risk management issues in a way that expands the scope of ERA to higher system-levels.

In this WP, proxies for silo-based risk assessments, using current state of the art approaches will be compared to systems-based ERA assessments, based on project-specific bespoke sb-Protection Goals, defined here for proofs of concept.