News Story 17 April 2015

Progress has been made in strengthening national networking and the report includes a snapshot of EFSA partners in all the Member States. The report also highlights how the Authority supports the European Commission in its enlargement and neighbourhood programmes and contributes to harmonisation of scientific approaches with international partners, European institutions and agencies.

The Scientific Cooperation Roadmap 2014–2016 lays out the way in which Member States and EFSA will continue to work together to ensure that Europe’s food is safe by developing a common risk assessment agenda and sharing expertise. The roadmap brings a multi-annual perspective to scientific cooperation and looks beyond EU borders.

Milestones achieved in 2014 include:  

• 58 new organisations added to the EFSA’s Article 36 list– a list of competent organisations which are eligible to assist EFSA in its tasks.
• 225 new applications for EFSA’s expert database – deepening the pool of external scientific experts able to assist EFSA.
• 60 meetings organised by Focal Points – which act as an interface between EFSA and the national food safety authorities, research institutes, consumers and other stakeholders.
• Launch of the 2nd edition of the Better Training for Safer Food risk assessment training courses. Within this initiative, 32 courses will be organised between 2014 and 2018. These will cover 8 different risk assessment areas and will be delivered to 800 national experts from Member State public organisations.
• Three-day European Neighbourhood Programme (ENP) Conference - with 55 participants from the ENP countries and speakers from the European Commission, international organisations, Member States, Pre-Accession countries and EFSA