Becoming a Cosmetic Product Safety Assessor – Training Courses
Becoming a Cosmetic Product Safety Assessor – Training Courses
Published in Euro Cosmetics Magazine
Required within the European regulatory framework for cosmetic products, Regulation (EC) 1223/2009, and prior to placing a cosmetic product on the market, a safety assessment is to be performed on the basis of the relevant information and a cosmetic product safety report (CPSR) is to be set up in accordance with the regulation’s Annex I. The CPSR is one important part of a Product Information File (PIF) and these represent EU regulatory modules, which are also commonly used for the market access in other worldwide countries, respectively, other regulatory zones.
The educational precondition for a cosmetics safety assessor, as requested in the EU regulation, is a degree awarded upon completion of a university course of theoretical and practical study in pharmacy, toxicology, medicine or a similar discipline. According to the interpretation of the European Court of Justice (CASE C-13/17-12.4.2018 – curia.europa.eu), this legal request means that the assessor needs the knowledge of the human body, certain pathologies that can affect it, plus the knowledge of the substances used in the manufacture of cosmetic products and their physical-/chemical properties.
However, a cosmetic product safety assessment is involving even more interdisciplinary approaches and knowledge of further science fields, aside of toxicology and pharmacology it is chemistry, biology/life sciences, as well as product and packaging technology and regulatory affairs. Therefore, the assessors’ practice shows, that further pre-qualification and ongoing training is mandatory before being able to perform and sign a regulatory compliant and scientifically holding cosmetic product safety assessments.
Therefore, Cosmetics Consultants Europe (CCE) and RWTH International Academy teamed up and created a training program for cosmetics safety assessment. CCE is an association uniting European consultants working in the cosmetics, cosmetic ingredients and borderline industries. RWTH International Academy is the oficial academy for continuing education of the RWTH Aachen University, one of a few German universities with excellence status and the largest technical university in Germany. Both entities joined their forces to create a training, which will enable participants to perform a safety assessment for cosmetics according to Annex I of the EU’s Cosmetics Product Regulation 1223/2009.
Teachers from the RWTH University will provide a solid science background, the industry professionals from CCE will contribute their hands-on experiences from doing safety assessments, from being challenged by authority inspectors and from cooperating with EU Commission entities.
There were three key incentives for the two partners, CCE & the RWTH International Academy, joining their forces:
- To combine the experience from PRACTICAL performance of safety assessments and profound education at an academic level.
- To base safety assessment and the Cosmetic Product Safety Re- port on a PAN-EUROPEAN experienceand performance level, as such standardizing the approaches in the various EU Member States and for world-wide safety assessors.
- To provide the training ON-LINE in order to be transparent and accessible to the world-wide stakeholders. Additionally, the on- line training approach allows to exibly adding training chapters at any time upon recognition of the need by and for the partici- pants.
The training is founded on profound teaching and on continu- ing practical support. It will be implemented in 6 training modules, each consisting of 4 webinars and one attendance day, which is a full day of practical student/trainer interaction. Based on new situation under COVID-19, the attendance days will be also performed online; however, it is anticipated to meet at a minimum one time face-to-face; thereto, nal decisions will be made when time allows. The courses will lead, upon successful termination, to a scientific certificate and the ability to perform safety assessments independently. Ongoing support will be provided through additional training modules and/or additional seminars, which will be developed based on students’ feedback or on new, upcoming regulatory and scientific challenges.
Everybody from all over the globe can join the training; know- ing about different educational pre-conditions of the students it was created as a toolbox where every module can be booked individually. The course model is a revolving approach, which means each module can be booked at any time and not necessarily in sequence. Also, each module will be terminated with a test for a module certificate, which will be issued. Yet, the safety assessor quali cation certi cate will be awarded only upon successful completion of all modules.
The 1rst training module commenced on 27. May 2020. In four webinars the regulatory environment of cosmetics and the building blocks of product formulations are addressed.
The next modules will be provided between September 2020 and May 2021.
