The European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) started in 2017 and ended mid-2022. As a large-scale multi-national project, it focused on science-to-policy cooperation, broad data sharing and the systematic establishment of networks in the field of Human Biomonitoring (HBM) at national, European, and international levels (Ganzleben et al., 2017). Over a period of five and a half years, HBM4EU has produced new methods and findings that provide a scientific basis for policy making in the sector of environmental health and chemical policy. HBM4EU is unique in its form. It was the first HBM project located directly at the science-policy interface and had developed an ambitious research programme targeted to answer open policy relevant questions concerning prioritised chemicals, which had been identified by EU institutions and partner countries. The project was organized as a co-funded European Joint Programme (European Commission, 2022), designed to support coordinated national research and innovation projects and allowing for the implementation of joint activities, e.g. research and innovation, networking and training. HBM4EU provides a blueprint for the even larger Partnership for the Assessment of Risk from Chemicals (PARC) and other EU funded large-scale projects targeting future policies for realizing the Green Deal and Zero Pollution Ambition in the field of chemicals, health, and environment.

A project of this scale raises major management challenges. HBM4EU had an overall budget of nearly €74 million, of which roughly €50 million were funded by the European Union's research and innovation funding programme Horizon 2020. EU funding was complemented by roughly €24 million matching funds from participating countries. The project started in 2017 with 106 partners from 26 countries and the European Environment Agency (EEA). By the end of its lifetime, it had grown to 116 partners from 30 countries plus the EEA. It included more than 600 collaborators, mostly scientists from public authorities, research institutions and universities. The German Environment Agency was appointed as Coordinator of HBM4EU.

In this article, we discuss some management issues of this large-scale, international collaborative project from the perspective of the Coordinator that may be valuable for the design and management of similar projects. While numerous substantial insights produced by HBM4EU and other projects are reported elsewhere, there is sparse information concerning experience made in the management of such large-scale co-funded EU initiatives. The project has produced many valuable lessons that may be useful for future initiatives. In the field of HBM, literature on previous projects mostly describes scientific results or the management of data and work content (Den Hond et al., 2015; Fiddicke et al., 2015). Thus, this paper differs from many reports of EU projects. It discusses some “lessons learnt” from the management of HBM4EU from the Coordinator's perspective. It focuses on four management issues, which might be of particular interest for future initiatives, namely the preparatory phase, the administrative governance structure, the scientific governance structure, and financial matters.

We develop four major points: First, prior to the beginning of the project, the Consortium Agreement needs to be well elaborated to prevent conflicts during the project lifetime. Second, a strong role for national and EU policy-making authorities in the administrative governance structure enhances the interest of recipients of project results. Third, large-scale international collaborative projects need an elaborate and well-financed scientific governance structure. Fourth, differentiation of funding rates among project activities threatens to create conflicts among project partners.