Regulatory hazard and risk assessments of chemical substances have to include all reliable and relevant data to be credible and complete. However, screening the literature for appropriate studies and extracting data is burdensome. Therefore, reducing impediments by making data easily and readily accessible to risk assessors could result in more comprehensive hazard and risk assessments. In this paper, we study WikiPharma, a database that aggregates ecotoxicity data for pharmaceuticals, extracted from peerreviewed studies. The use of the WikiPharma database is explored to develop strategies on how similar tools can bridge between science and policy by providing risk assessors with easily accessible summary data. Specifically, adapting the concept of WikiPharma to industrial chemicals regulated under the REACH regulation is discussed. Experiences with WikiPharma show that there is interest in using peerreviewed studies in regulatory decision-making. However, tools like WikiPharma require constant updates. Hence, as for "WikiREACH", effective incentives are needed to motivate researchers to feed in relevant data for regulatory assessments. Besides, support by automated processes can aid in the labourintensive activity of gathering data. To ensure that such a tool is continuously maintained and compatible with the regulatory system, and thereby useful for hazard and risk assessments of chemicals, it would benefit from being developed in collaboration with the major stakeholders in the field, i.e. regulatory agencies, academia, industry, scientific journals, and providers of research network platforms.
Environmental signicanceThis paper addresses how scientic research is (not) used in decision-making, focusing on peer-reviewed toxicity and ecotoxicity studies for regulatory assessments of chemicals. One possible reason for the overall low regulatory use of peer-reviewed studies is that the process of searching for studies is resource demanding. As a consequence, regulatory decisions are not based on all available information. This paper suggests the development of a tool that can facilitate the use of peer-reviewed studies in the REACH context ("WikiREACH"), based on experiences from the use and development of the WikiPharma database for ecotoxicity studies for pharmaceuticals. Creating equivalent tools for other groups of chemicals is possible and an important way forward.