About NICNAS

Established in 1990, NICNAS:

• Provides a national notification and assessment scheme to protect the health of the public, workers and the environment from the harmful effect of industrial chemicals; and

• Assesses all chemicals new to Australia and assesses those chemicals already used (existing chemicals) on a priority basis, in response to concerns about their safety on health and environmental grounds.

We are committed to increasing knowledge about chemicals and chemical safety through:

• More than 1,500 scientific assessment reports that contain safety recommendations for the handling and labelling of the chemical

• The Chemical Gazette which we publish electronically every month; and

• The Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances (AICS) which lists more than 38,000 chemicals.

The Australian Government regulates industrial chemicals under:

• Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989; and

• Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Regulations 1990.

NICNAS is located in the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

More information

• Message from the Director

• NICNAS organisation chart (PDF 15 kb)

• About NICNAS (PDF 3.05 Mb)