How to organise a successful toxicology workshop? A participant perspective on the Collaboration to Harmonise the Assessment of Next Generation Evidence (CHANGE) workshop in Oslo, 18–20 June 2024

To create a regulatory infrastructure for the effective use of NAMs, the CHANGE project aims to organise three workshops to Collaborate and Harmonise the Assessment of Next Generation Evidence. To better ensure the success of the CHANGE approach, project organisers invited a group of participants to provide feedback on the first workshop held in Oslo on 18–20 June 2024. This report represents the participants’ perspective on the CHANGE working methodology and serves as a companion piece to the CHANGE organisers’ publication “Improving how we use workshops when solving complex research problems: Reflections from the CHANGE Project”, which provides a detailed description of the methodology, outputs, and conclusions from the workshop. The report includes feedback from most participants in response to the workshop evaluation as well as personal experiences from the authors. The workshop successfully facilitated stimulating engagement with a diversity of perspectives, though representation could be further broadened across sectors and geographies. Additionally, future workshops could refine the explanation of novel approaches to participants, as well as improve how information gathering is structured and formatted for feedback. Overall, participants were enthusiastic about CHANGE and believe the approach holds great promise in shaping future effective use of NAMs for chemical safety assessments. The report concludes with recommendations for follow-up workshops in 2025 and 2026, aiming to contribute to a regulatory infrastructure open to the acceptance and effective use of NAMs and to the use of similar workshops to address other emerging science policy issues.