Final Report Summary - COLLAB4SAFETY (Towards sustainable global food safety collaboration)
Executive Summary:
The goal of the Collab4Safety consortium was to establish a global network on food safety with the aim of developing a sustainable coordination platform for the exchange of food safety information about research findings, capacity building and policies, and to facilitate the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food risks. The project consisted of five work packages: the global mapping of food safety, dissemination to global society, developing a sustainable coordination structure, having a sustainable impact, and the final overall management work package.
As part of the dissemination work package, a stakeholder database was started. This public database aimed to increase brokerage and future collaborations between parties with common interests. It allows searching stakeholders by name, area of expertise, job title, organization, type of organization and country. It is accessible through the project website. A total of 1,630 experts, from 123 countries, are registered in the database. Other major dissemination activities included: regional events and workshops organized by the Collab4Safety consortium, a food safety portal divided into five thematic sections (food safety news, institutions, education and training, research and innovation, and legislation), and finally a 3 minute movie on food safety for the European Commission and a 1 minute clip on the Collab4Safety project were produced – both videos were shown at the EU pavilion at the Milan EXPO.
To map international research, existing and emerging food safety problems, innovation and training activities and policies in the area of food safety and to identify gaps in knowledge salient to policy development, an initial scoping workshop was organized, followed by a Delphi survey. The initial scoping workshop was intended to identify the issues to be explored in the Delphi survey. In this project, 106 experts from the stakeholder database provided input for the Delphi survey. Multinomial regression and model averaging of the Delphi results identified that consumer priorities, demographic change, media representations, political will, resource shortages and water security were the primary drivers of both existing and emerging food safety risks. Moreover, single drivers were shown to have multiple impacts upon food safety risks. From a methodological perspective, the identification of socio-economic and biophysical drivers which have multiple impacts on food safety risks emphasise the need for a transdisciplinary and systems approach to food safety management and mitigation. From a policy perspective, the finding that one specific driver may potentially mitigate the impacts of multiple food safety hazards, has important implications for policy development prioritisation. A high diversity in expert certainty – particularly with regards to drivers of existing and emerging food safety risks internationally – highlights the dangers of basing policy decisions exclusively on expert opinions and suggests the importance of collecting of empirical evidence from a range of stakeholders is necessary in order to establish whether a driver is, in fact, a policy priority.
In order to develop a sustainable coordination structure, the key factors behind the success of existing sustainable networks were assessed by analysing selected examples of such networks. A network is considered to be sustainable if relevant activities are pursued and outputs are maintained or developed after the end of EU funding. The key factors that were identified were related to: (i) very clear objectives and expected results from the beginning, (ii) effective management and leadership should be decided very early in the process, (iii) involvement of consortium members should be assured from the beginning, (iv) capacity for capturing necessary resources to become sustainable, and (v) the design of the consortium. Based on those results regarding best practices, an inventory was made of suitable coordination structures for the future of the Collab4Safety Consortium and a subsequent business plan with financial details was prepared. Many of the partners belong to the SELAMAT network which gave them experience in working together in a network, which is a competitive advantage. Moreover, the SELAMAT network could be used as a base for upgrading simultaneously with C4S. Hence, it was decided to start the process of integrating C4S services and products into the SELAMAT members’ portfolios to ensure sustainability of the C4S results.
Project Context and Objectives:
As a consequence of the increasing complexity, and globalisation, of the food supply, food safety problems are rapidly spreading internationally and therefore food safety risks must be addressed holistically at regional, national and international levels. The effect of drivers of food safety risks, such as climate change, fraud (e.g. the melamine crisis), new technologies (e.g. biotechnology, nanotechnology), and demographic developments (e.g. increased urbanisation and international travel) are experienced around the world, albeit at different levels and with different health, environmental and economic impacts. Responses to these challenges have elements which are rooted in different levels of knowledge, cultural traditions and practices, and socio-historical context, all of which are also subject to temporal change and influence by these external events. Within the European Research Area, and within similar programmes elsewhere in the world, a huge amount of data is generated that could help policy makers and industry to deal successfully with the challenges associated with food safety. High quality research and innovation are prerequisites for improving the quality of life, enhancing social welfare and boosting economic competitiveness. Broader and more inclusive internationally cooperation on food safety than is currently in operation will lead to more efficient use of research funds, sharing of best practices and a durable partnership with the EU’s major food trading partners (being Latin-America (Brazil, Argentina), US and China).
The objectives and activities proposed by Collab4Safety were to contribute to an increased cooperation and coordination on food safety (e.g. research, policies and training) on a global level and consequently would contribute to improving quality of life, enhancing social welfare, and boosting the economic competitiveness of the European food industry. To achieve the project objectives, the Collab4Safety project was subdivided into 4 interrelated research work packages (WPs) that would conduct specific activities. The following WPs and tasks were included:
WP1. Global mapping of food safety by means of a well-established and tested Delphi method. This investigation identified gaps in current knowledge, and mapped global interests in food safety research. In addition, existing training and capacity building requirements were identified, together with identification of policy gaps at a global level.
WP2. Dissemination to global society. The activities employed in this WP were directed to the development of a global stakeholders’ database and that was used to ensure relevant stakeholders are interested and engaged in the project’s activities and objectives. In addition, tools were developed to inform stakeholders about relevant on-going activities elsewhere in the world (via the Food Safety Portal) and to raise the general awareness of the project (via website, leaflets, social media, etc.).
WP3. Developing a sustainable coordination structure. The main objective of this WP was to identify best options to develop a sustainable collaboration on the identified areas and stakeholders.
WP4. Integration of the output from WP1-WP3 to ensure a sustainable impact of Collab4Safety. This WP integrated the methods and procedures developed in WP1-3 and used this information to develop a policy position paper detailing research needs in the area of global food safety, integrating information across emerging science requirements, capacity and capability building internationally, and regulation.
Within the context of WP1 an initial scoping workshop was organized to identify emerging issues, followed by a Delphi survey. The Delphi methodology makes use of two or more rounds of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts. A summary of the results is provided to the panel by the facilitator after every round, after which the panel members are asked to revise their opinion in the next round. This research applied the Delphi methodology to collate international expert opinion on current food safety systems regarding emerging food risk identification, including addressing gaps in international research activities and knowledge, in order to provide input for the development of on developing policies to promote more efficient identification, prevention and mitigation of emerging food risks at a global level. An important element of expert decision-making associated with existing and emerging food risks, and the drivers of these, is the extent to which experts are certain or uncertain regarding their opinion. Experts were also asked not only their opinions regarding the drivers and importance of food safety risks, but also how uncertain they were regarding their opinions. This is relevant as, if experts rate a particular food risk driver as highly important, but are uncertain in their opinion, further research will be required to clarify whether the food risk or food risk driver is, in fact, a policy priority. Although systematic evaluation of uncertainty has been included in Delphi decision-making models in previous research, it has been infrequently addressed in the area of food risk policy. T
Emerging food risk identification, prevention and mitigation will, at the global level, require harmonisation of existing evidence regarding what is, and what is not, known about emerging risks worldwide. Emerging food risks are not necessarily new risks. Some have only recently been identified due to improved detection techniques, while others are the result of mutations and adaptations of well-known microorganisms. In some cases, risks emerge as an unintended side effect of a deliberate control measure. Other risks may emerge in specific regions due to changes in external conditions. For example, climate change may introduce tropical food safety hazards in regions with a (previously) moderate climate. Global food risk management can only be as effective as local food risk management, which in turn will depend on the effectiveness of localised regulation (and the extent to which these regulations are enforced locally), socio-cultural factors (e.g. linked to local cooking practices), and the immediate environment. Local factors may determine whether a food risk emerges in the first place, and whether it can be identified, managed and, if necessary, mitigated.
WP2 intended to raise general awareness of the project, actively disseminate the project activities and deliverables to project stakeholders, provide a comprehensive ordered portal on food safety that will enable the global research and policy societies to find up-to-date information on policies (legislation), research and training, make project stakeholders interested and engaged in the project (e.g. WP1 and WP4), and to facilitate the implementation of other project work packages. This WP consisted of four main tasks: (i) provision of a continuously updated stakeholder database, (ii) development of a communication plan, (iii) creation of a food safety portal, and (iv) implementation of communication activities.
The stakeholder database would be used to drive many elements of the project, including the Delphi analysis, and be the basis of the development of coordination and dissemination activities throughout the project. A specific set of selection criteria was to be developed to ensure both that the list includes all stakeholder types and that the most relevant stakeholders are identified in each type. The pool of stakeholders was intended to include those from regulatory, policy, industry (including SMEs), risk analysis and NGO communities. The database would also include representatives of relevant multi-national and global organizations, such as the WHO and FAO. Communication and dissemination activities and tools would include the following elements: project website, social networking communication tools, external meetings, seminars and conferences, project internal events and dissemination materials such as brochures, posters, leaflets, etc. Finally, the communication plan would include a series of indicators for measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of the project communication and dissemination activities.
The primary objective of WP3 was to create a sustainable cooperation structure that could be used during the project and could continue beyond the project to maintain the coordination of actions to promote food safety. In this context, task 3.1 Selecting best practice examples had the objective of reviewing examples of existing networks that attained sustainability after initial public funding had been discontinued, and whose results are still seen as relevant in terms of designing research agendas, policy development and implementation, or training efforts. This overview was decided to include researchers, consumers, producer organizations / platforms / networks focused on the different aspects of food safety, or other areas of applied food research and policy translation. The process would include the use of interviews that would be conducted in order to aggregate insights from key individuals who had demonstrated successful implementation of networks and platforms with similar ambitions to the current project, and who could provide insights into the critical success factors, and potential barriers to sustainability. The analysis of best practices would also include the views of members of international institutions dealing with issues of food safety in order to evaluate the opinions regarding the development of a sustainable platform on food safety. The opinions of partners, through the answer to a small questionnaire, would also allow inclusion of their reflections due to their own experience and the experience of their organizations.
The second objective of WP3 was to discuss and propose a sustainable collaboration structure. This involved the development of a model for an organization structure and governance that would ensure sustainability beyond the lifetime of the project network. Therefore, in the last tasks and for the development of future sustainability; a clear definition of the future objectives of the network, its target end-users and audiences and accountable goals would be evaluated. Also a cost/benefit evaluation of the existence of a network and its maintenance was performed. The development of a business plan/business model required the evaluation of alternative financing mechanisms, as well as resource estimates for ensuring short term, medium term and long term viability of the coordination structure. The business plan for delivering a sustainable coordination structure will ensure the continuity of the work done within the present project.
The overall objective of WP4 was to develop and implement a food safety road map that would facilitate a sustainable global cooperation on food safety. The Collab4Safety project was intended to deliver products and methods that would support collaboration and coordination of food safety research, training and policies on global dimensions. However, a serious pitfall, which was observed in many projects, was that the momentum created by the project is lost after the project ends. Increasing the awareness of projects results at the stakeholder level is not enough to ensure a sustainable impact. It is important to engage with stakeholders at an early stage and to focus the project’s activities towards their needs, hence developing a two-way interaction process. Such an approach has been successful for the EU FP6 project SELAMAT (EU-ASEM platform on food safety; www.selamat.net) which has now been sustainable for more than 8 years. Collab4Safety would build on the experience of that success.
Sustainable impact may be realised in two ways: (i) by creating a sustainable structure that promotes and exploits the projects products after the projects ends (such as for example SELAMAT), (ii) by ensuring that existing institutions dealing with food safety will adopt/ use the methods and products developed. In WP3 these options were to be analysed.
Project Results:
Food safety has been recognised by many governments worldwide as a major challenge, affecting consumer health, producing inefficiencies in animal and plant production systems, and creating trade barriers across the global food web.
Within the European Research Area, and within similar programmes elsewhere in the world, a huge amount of data is being generated that could help policy makers and industry to deal successfully with the challenges associated with food safety. High quality research and innovation are prerequisites for improving the quality of life, enhancing social welfare and boosting economic competitiveness. It is expected that broader and more inclusive international cooperation on food safety than the one currently in operation will lead to a more efficient use of research funds, sharing of best practices and a durable partnership with the European Union’s major food trading partners.
Collab4Safety is aimed at contributing to an increased cooperation and coordination on food safety at a global level and consequently at contributing to improving quality of life, enhancing social welfare and boosting the economic competitiveness of the European food industry. The Collab4Safety project started on 1 August, 2012 and ran for 4 years, counting with the participation of 10 partners from 8 different countries. The present report shows the total progress made within Collab4Safety.
The primary task for WP1 was to conduct a Delphi survey. The Delphi methodology makes use of two or more rounds of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts. A summary of the results is provided to the panel by the facilitator after every round, after which the panel members are asked to revise their opinion in the next round. To identify issues to be explored in the Delphi survey, a scoping workshop was held in Brussels on March 5, 2013. Specifically, the workshop aimed to discuss the identification of key issues driving the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food risks, knowledge gaps with respect to existing and developing policy frameworks, and possible future food risk policy scenarios. As the number of experts registered in the newly developed database (Deliverable 2.4 of WP2) was limited at the time of organising the scoping workshop, a diverse group of external experts was selected using the partners’ networks. In addition, it was decided that the number of consortium members from third countries (e.g. Brazil, China and Russia) would be representative enough to have a diverse final sample. Accordingly, 38 experts from the EU member states were invited through email to participate in the workshop. The total number of participants was 29, consisting of 14 consortium members and15 external experts from Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom.
The structure and moderation of the workshop was conducted by UNEW and the logistics were coordinated by DLO-RIKILT. Potential themes that were discussed in the workshop were identified by the UNEW team. However, all project partners were asked to contribute prior to the workshop to the identification of the themes and structuring process. Their contributions were collated and examined to finalize the structure. A break-out activity document was prepared to inform workshop participants about what they were expected to do and how to contribute to the session.
The workshop was held on March 5th, 2013 at the Northern Ireland Executive Offices in Brussels. It was moderated by an external professional moderator, Dr. Sharron Kuznesof from Newcastle University. Her role as a moderator was to ensure the transparency, impartiality, focus, fair involvement, good timing, and neutral atmosphere during the workshop.
The workshop started with a brief talk by the moderator to welcome the participants and provide them brief information about the workshop program. The program started with an introduction by the project coordinator, Hans Marvin from DLORIKILT, and continued with three plenary talks given by Masami Takeuchi from Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), and Prof. Lynn Frewer and Dr. Carmen Hubbard from Newcastle University. These presentations informed the participants about Collab4safety project, FAO’s similar activities on food safety, issues to be discussed in the workshop, and the Delphi methodology (Annex 4). After each presentation, the audience was invited to comment and ask questions. In the afternoon, in the break-out session, participants were assigned into three groups. Each group had a moderator, a rapporteur and an observer, who were consortium members. Each group discussed different topics based on the break-out activity document.
Each group received a list of themes (e.g. drivers) and was invited to discuss and identify for each of these drivers, existing threats to food safety, emerging risks to food safety, research and training needs, evidence needed for policy development, and 10 national and international policy gaps in relation to different drivers of food safety.
The moderator in each group ensured that all the themes were discussed and that all participants in his/her group contributed to session. The rapporteurs were taken notes and prepared the feedback from each group. Following the break-out session, the rapporteurs presented a 10-min summary, informing the participants about the discussions in each group. Participants were then asked for their feedback and questions. Rapporteurs submitted their reports about the group discussions after the end of the workshop. These reports were assessed to identify the outcomes of the workshop. The group discussions identified two drivers of emerging food risk; exploitation of resources (e.g. energy, differential population, vulnerability) and media. Suggested research areas about media were as follows:
• How does the media pick issues and emphasize them;
• How can the media influence governments, industry and people change their opinions;
• How the media influences is deponent upon the level of media independence in a country.
Based on the outcomes of the scoping workshop, the Delphi survey (in English) was developed by the UNEW team, in collaboration with DLO-RIKILT and all partners were provided with the opportunity to comment on and refine the document. It was initially piloted to 7 experts from academia and private organizations in Europe. They were asked both to complete the survey and make comments and suggestions. As the initial piloting resulted in similar comments and suggestions about the survey, it was concluded that piloting with 7 experts is sufficient to finalize the survey. Accordingly, the survey was adjusted based on the results of the pilot study and translated from English into different languages of the project consortium (i.e. French, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Polish). Back translations were not performed as the survey does not contain any sensitive contexts for which back translation is necessary. Programming, hosting, and online data processing (i.e. preparing the raw data file) of the survey in seven languages were performed by a professional survey company. Potential participants were identified from the stake holder database developed in WP2, and selected according to geographical dispersion, relevant expertise, sectorial representation, and demographic characteristics (e.g. gender, age). A diverse sample of five hundred and three experts was invited through email to complete the questionnaire. Data collection started on December 9, 2013 and finished on January 8, 2014. The final sample consisted of 106 experts, representative of 51 countries globally.
This research has demonstrated that, in terms of expert opinion, specific potential drivers of food risk do not increase or decrease specific food safety risks, but that there exists a complex set of interactions which have positive and negative impacts on existing and emerging food risks. Each potential driver is associated with increasing or decreasing multiple food safety risks, and cannot be considered in isolation of other factors, either in research or policy. In order to develop policies to effectively mitigate food safety risks, the adoption of a “systems approach” is needed, which is capable of simultaneously modelling the impacts of multiple drivers, and generating a portfolio policy response based on the impacts of different potential future food safety scenarios. In other words, developing policies which influence a single driver in a single geographic location will have very little impact on existing or emerging food safety risks. Traditional reductionist approaches to delivering evidence for policy makers will not enable the effective translation of policy outcomes to occur. While this conclusion is not novel (see, for example, the global Food Security Programme currently running in the U.K (http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/programme/activities/) the results support the idea that multiple interacting drivers of risk (an important component of food security) need to be considered as part of an evidence base for policy responses.
An important factor shaping the discourse about food security, which also addresses food safety, is the complex, qualitative, and systemic view of the post-agricultural production side of the food system, which emphasises nutrition as well as food availability, and the role of human behaviour (including that associated with producers, the food industry, and consumers). As a consequence, decisions regarding food safety need to be made within this systemic context using diverse information from multiple sources (including stakeholder) inputs into models and identification of relevant knowledge and data. Interventions also require the adoption of a systems approach as is common in other areas of public health policy. The experts prioritised the need for national and international food safety agencies, but it is possible that, as a consequence of the interrelationship between food safety and food security, such agencies might be better placed to manage broad food (and nutrition) security through application of an integrated, coherent policy response, particularly at the international, intergovernmental agency level.
In addition, such a systemic approach cannot ignore other aspects of food security, as it is likely to interact with food quality on the one hand, and food availability on the other. Understanding this complexity is central to the development of methodologies. For example, the research presented here has demonstrated that climate change is already negatively impacting food production, and may also have negative impacts on the nutritional quality of food. At the same time, malnutrition (including, for example, nutrient intakes, including nutrient needs at different stages the life cycle, and obesity) continues to have negative effects on public health, with disproportionately negative effects on vulnerable groups such as the less affluent, or the elderly.
Simultaneous consideration of food safety and sustainability of production, the energy provided by the diet, and its nutritional quality within the entire food system is required in terms of the evidence generated by research, and its subsequent translation into concrete policies. To be secure, the food system must ensure both supply and demand, and address food safety, quality and availability simultaneously. The balance between supply, cost and environmental impact requires careful consideration to meet the challenge of provision of safe, nutritious food whilst maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services. Given that the food system must be resilient to future shocks (whether these originate in the social or natural environment, and compromise safety or other aspects of food security) a portfolio policy response is required, which will enable flexible responses to predictable, but uncertain, future events.
A paper has been submitted for publication: Helen Kendall, Gulbanu Kaptan, Gavin Stewart, Matt Grainger, Sharron Kuznesof, Paul Naughton, Carmen Hubbard, Marian Raley, Hans Marvin , and Lynn J. Frewer. Drivers of existing and emerging food safety risks: Expert opinion and uncertainty regarding multiple impacts
The primary task of WP2 was to raise general awareness of the project, to actively disseminate the project activities and deliverables to project stakeholders, to provide a comprehensive ordered portal on food safety that would enable the global research and policy societies to find up-to-date information on policies (legislation), research and training, to make project stakeholders interested and engaged in the project (e.g. WP1 and WP4), and to facilitate the implementation of other project work packages. To that end, various activities have been undertaken.
At the beginning of the project, a communication plan was developed. The plan aims to serve as a support to the implementation of dissemination activities throughout the project by defining its target groups, communication contents, the communication and dissemination activities and tools to be applied throughout the project’s lifetime, communication action plans (global and individual) and monitoring and evaluation indicators. Above all, this plan was intended to be a practical tool to be used by all partners to develop their individual and collective activities efficiently and contribute to the global objective of the project. To keep the description of the project’s dissemination activities up to date, the communication plan was updated annually with input from all work package leaders.
Collab4Safety’s most important activities within WP2 were related to the development of the stakeholder database, regional events and workshops, and the food safety portal. These activities are discussed below.
Stakeholder Database
The Food Safety Stakeholders Database was used as the basis of the project’s dissemination activities, as well as of other coordination activities, including the Delphi analysis. This public database aimed to increase brokerage and future collaborations between parties with common interests. It allows searching stakeholders by name, area of expertise, job title, organization, type of organization and country. It is accessible through the project website and available at the following direct link: http://web.spi.pt/collab4safety/database.
Since the project target groups comprise a large community working in the food safety field, there was a need to specify stakeholder categories considered crucial to be reached during the project. These are: Food regulatory agencies, Policy makers, Food safety authorities/agencies, Industry, NGO, Academic/research organisations and Multinational/global organisations. A total of 1,630 experts, from 123 countries, registered in the database.
Collab4Safety Regional Events and Workshops
The consortium organized a series of Regional Events and Stakeholder Workshops that aimed at both disseminating the project and also discussing regional and global issues related to food safety, as well as the development of the Food Safety Portal, the Delphi study and the Roadmap containing policy recommendations. All the events featured local and international speakers, and participants were mostly representatives of national agencies, members of international organizations, policy makers, industry and nongovernmental organizations members.
Food Safety Portal
The Collab4Safety Food Safety Portal provides a comprehensive gateway to multiple resources of high relevance to food safety that will enable global research and policy communities to find up-to-date information on food safety organisations, research and innovation, legislation and training. It is designed as an online tool for the rapid sharing of information to enhance food safety around the globe. The Portal can be found at http://collab4safetyfoodsafetyportal.eu/
The information contained has been categorised and divided into 5 thematic sections:
1. Food Safety News Portal. This portal provides links to up to date news, articles and published information on a variety of aspects of food safety. A key aspect of the portal is the inter connectivity to rapid recalls and alerts systems and news releases. The available news sources, representing slightly different types of information provision for food safety issues, have been divided in the following categories:
• Alerts - used by local authorities to inform consumers of food safety issues.
• Information sources - provide informational resources for food safety issues
• News sources - provide up to date news bulletins of particular relevance to food safety
The food safety news portal provides much-needed coverage of topics important not only to the core stakeholders of food industry leaders, academics and regulatory bodies, but also to all individuals who care about the safety of the food supply chain.
2. Food Safety Institutions Portal enables stakeholders to connect with key food safety Institutes on a global scale, and provides information and contact details for these organisations. The portal highlights the organisations of food safety professionals including authorities, ministries, institutes and standards organisations contributing to advancing food and feed safety worldwide. The information on the database can be selected, through the Institutions search, based on the criteria of region, country and type of institution. The name of the institutions and associated webpage links are provided to match the search criteria.
3. Education and training portal provides access to key initiatives for developing and progressing in knowledge in the areas of food safety at both the academic (undergraduate and postgraduate), industrial and regulatory level. The portal thus allows a free search of training initiatives by subject, type and/or country of origin, and groups each initiative by provider, displaying additional information, such as title, type of provision, target audience and its frequency. Each initiative links to the associated website, where more detailed information can be found.
4. Research and Innovation portal enables access to key projects and information on innovative and new areas of research in the food safety arena. This provides an overview of research activities at a global, European and national level. The project search feature allows access to this database connected to CORDIS and features a large number of projects funded at the European level (FP4, FP5, FP6, FP7 and H2020). The projects have been classified under country and into five key food safety thematic areas.
Additional information on research and projects at the national and international level can be sourced from the funded projects section. This section provides information on funding agencies which have published records on the projects that they have funded. The funding agencies are listed per continent and, once selected, the search feature on the funding agency website can be used to find funded projects.
5. Legislation portal functions as a 'guide' through on-line available information on legislation for contaminants, pesticides, veterinary drugs and additives. The information for the legislation section is directly interlinked to the search information on the SELAMAT website.
Next to these three primary dissemination activities, social networking communication tools and other promotional materials were developed. Collab4Safety has a Twitter account (with 249 followers and 148 tweets) and a LinkedIn group (65 members) both used to disseminate the project, its events and the achieved project’s results. In the last reporting period, efforts were directed to promote both partners’ events and the project’s own final policy conference event. Other promotional materials include all the project’s newsletters, flyers, 2 press releases and brochures (in English, Russian, French, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin), one slide presentation, the roll up (also in all the languages mentioned above), 2 pocket guides (in English) and videos and online press. The project was also disseminated through press releases and booklets in local and European electronic media.
The overall objective of WP3 was to create a sustainable cooperation structure that would be used during the project and would continue beyond the project to maintain the coordination of actions to promote food safety. Activities to be coordinated were based on the results from Delphi survey and later activities. This WP consisted of four tasks: a report on best practices of governance and maintenance of networks (task 3.1) a report on suitable coordination structures (task 3.2) a report detailing the evaluation of the costs/benefits of creating a sustainable network to follow (task 3.3) and finally a business plan (task 3.4).
In task 3.1 an analysis on best practices of governance and maintenance of networks was performed. A strategic approach was followed to gather information on projects or networks that became sustainable, with or without the initial funding stages from financing agencies, which was to consult different sources of information. Although most of the examples that were presented in the report are related to projects/networks that started in their inception with EC funding, other examples are from networks that had not received an initially EC or other financing agencies funding. Despite Collab4Safety being focussed on Food Safety, the research performed was not restricted to this area, on the contrary, it tried to be the more broad possible in terms of thematic, objectives and partners. From interviewees’ opinions, the experience of members of Collab4Safety and the information gathered from different available publications, some success factors were highlighted such as: (i) having very clear objectives and expected results from the beginning, (ii) effective management and leadership should be decided very early in the process, (iii) involvement of consortium members should be assured from the beginning, (iv) capacity for capturing necessary resources to become sustainable, and (v) the design of the consortium. The report provides the conclusions concerning the study conducted in task 3.1 towards the analysis of collected examples of sustainable networks. This study was not intended to be exhaustive but to present a global overview of the different types of networks that were found.
In task 3.2 the first part of the work was dedicated to designing sustainable collaboration/ coordination structure in practice. The approach that was used to gather information to proceed with the design of a sustainable collaboration/ coordination structure was based on: (i) results from task 3.1 (ii) direct discussions and consultations with several Collab4Safety and SELAMAT partners, and (iii) the responses obtained to a the questionnaire that was prepared by iBET and RIKILT and sent to all partners of Collab4Safety. Several aspects were taken in consideration: 1) what makes a network unique; 2) considerations on how to design the management of the network; 3) the types of partners that could be included in the network; 4) the assessment of financial issues and the corresponding setting forward of several financing possibilities; 5) the measurements of the success of a network.
The second part of the work of Task 3.2 was dedicated to gathering financial data on the potential expenses a network, when becoming sustainable, has to incorporate. The following items were found to be the ones that have absolutely to taken into consideration: management, travel, mixed expenses, organization of workshops, and organization of training events. In terms of management were considered essential the expenses in labour of a coordinator, a secretary and an accounting officer. The budget will be based on hours of work/yearly. Travels were also considered for the coordinator and secretary, for two meetings a year. Mixed expenses consider the production of flyers, stationary material, and maintenance of website of the network. Other types of costs considered were the ones with the organization of two workshops per year. The amounts reported in mixed expenses consider the invitation of 2 experts from outside of the network, 2 days of activity and per diem and other expenses that have to be taken into consideration for the organization of one workshop, considering 70 participants. Finally expenses that can be foreseen with the organization of two training events per year were detailed considering the invitation of 2 experts outside of the network, 2 days of activity and per diem, as well as the expenses that have to be taken into consideration for the organization of the events, considering 20 participants.
In task 3.3 the final design of the governance model for sustainable collaboration was tested and evaluated. Important features to consider were; economic viability (who will pay), objectives (what do you want to achieve) and a clear governance structure (how should the network be organised). Work conducted in the previous periods was aimed to learn from the experiences of other initiatives having a similar objective (i.e. task 3.1). Based on this information a governance structure was proposed (i.e. task 3.2). The present task (i.e. task 3.3) focussed on the economic aspects of a sustainable coordination structure. To this end a report was prepared detailing costs and benefits of creating a sustainable structure (D3.3) and a business plan was developed (D3.4). The results were discussed within the C4S consortium and a proposal was made for the SELAMAT consortium. The objective of the sustainable coordination structure as foreseen by the Collab4Safety (C4S) consortium was to stimulate exchange of food safety information about research findings, capacity building and policies and to support the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food safety risks.
This sustainable network structure will contribute to the development of trust between key players and institutions, which is needed to create an international forum for exchange of information and opinions on matters pertaining to food safety in the food and feed chains.
Because of the success of SELAMAT (www.selamat.net) and possibility to be taken up by this organisation in the future, it has been decided to implement a similar legal structure. SELAMAT aims to develop into a global coverage and C4S may provide that. C4S has several unique competitive advantages that makes C4S interesting for SELAMAT and for future clients. C4S has developed two unique databases:
• The Food Safety Portal. This portal provides a comprehensive gateway to multiple resources of high relevance to food safety that will enable global research and policy communities, as well as other groups to find up-to-date information on food safety organizations, research and training.
• Stakeholders Database. This database was designed to include all types of stakeholders worldwide involved in any areas of food safety. The public database aims to increase brokerage and future collaborations between parties with common interests. It allows searching stakeholders by name, area of expertise, job title, organization, type of organization and country.
In addition, C4S has conducted a systematic assessment of existing international activities in regard to food safety through a global Delphi survey. This information has been integrated into policy recommendations to support sustainable collaboration on food safety between EU and its main trading partners. Potential areas of collaboration and existing gaps in knowledge and training needs have been identified and forms an excellent basis to initiate new businesses.
Many of the partners of the network have long experience in international networks and have a mission of their own organizations to work globally. CIRAD, as the main French institute that supports the French government in research for agriculture in the developing world, for instance has a worldwide network of contacts with knowledge on agriculture, food production and food safety
Many of the partners also belong to the SELAMAT network which gave them experience in working together in a network, which is a competitive advantage. Moreover, the SELAMAT network could be used as a base for upgrading simultaneously with C4S. The SELAMAT network offers the following services:
• Information exchange on topics related to food production, food safety and food quality via workshops, flyers, lectures and publications.
• Training courses: electronic (distance learning tool) and hands-on training. The following examples of training courses that are available: Pesticides, Mycotoxins, Dioxins and PAHs, Acrylamide and Furans, Heavy metals, Microbiology and GMOs, Veterinary drugs, Exposure assessment, HACCP, and Traceability & Emerging risk.
• Global Food Safety Legislation Portal and help desk for advice on methods and legislation, a unique consultation point.
• Initiate joint activities including joint research projects (several EU funded projects / proposals with SELAMAT partners have been prepared).
• Support to members in participation of projects in EU framework programs.
The results of WP3 have been presented in a management meeting of SELAMAT and the SELAMAT members agreed to start the process of integrating C4S services and products into their portfolio. C4S members were also welcomed as SELAMAT partners. The SELAMAT consortium accepted the different forms of contribution to the consortium as proposed by Collab4Safety but it will be decided case by case (for each new partner and their contribution) under which conditions a new organisation may become a SELAMAT member.
The overall objective of WP4 was to develop and implement a food safety road map that would facilitate a sustainable global cooperation on food safety. WP4 consisted of four tasks: organizing stakeholder workshop for refining policy translation and developing an outline for a road map for future implementation (task 4.1) developing that Food Safety Road Map (task 4.2) organizing an Outreach and Policy Conference Event to disseminate the conclusions and recommendations of the Delphi survey (task 4.3) and finally the publication of a policy white paper.
Task 4.1 encompassed organizing a stakeholder workshop in order to share the interim conclusions and recommendations of the Delphi survey (performed in WP1) with key international and European stakeholders. Originally the workshop was planned to take place in month 38. However, in order to utilize the opportunity to present at the Milan Expo 2015 event this was brought forward to month 34. Materials for, and moderation of the workshop was the responsibility of UNEW supported by project coordinators DLO-RIKLT and partners SPI.
The workshop was moderated by the project coordinator Dr Hans Marvin to ensure transparency, impartiality, focus, fair involvement, good timing, and the maintenance of a neutral atmosphere during the workshop. The workshop schedule began with a short welcome address from the EU scientific officer (Dirk Pottier) and the moderator. This was intentionally brief as its purpose was to welcome and thank participants for their attendance, provide them with a short introduction to the collab4safety project and the scope of the workshop, provide housekeeping information and briefly outline the schedule for the afternoon. The moderator then introduced the first plenary speaker Professor Lynn Frewer (UNEW, WP1 leader) who provided a detailed summary of the preliminary findings of the Delphi survey conducted as part of WP1. Following the plenary presentations from the invited speakers, an interactive discussion session was moderated by Professor Lynn Frewer and Dr Helen Kendall (UNEW). The aim of the session was to explore the emergent research and policy needs associated with emerging food risks. The discussion was designed to be participatory based on 11 different questions and was supported by an interactive audience participation support tool TurningPoint. In total 17 person participated in this interactive session.
Across the audience there was unanimous agreement that inter-disciplinary research was essential in order to address existing and emerging food safety risks. 100% of the sample agree/strongly with this statement. 86.67% of the audience agreed that inter-governmental organisations such as the FAO have a key role to play helping countries to collaborate in the area of food safety.
The objective of task 4.2: Provision and Presentation of a Food Safety Road Map was to develop an outline for the implementation of the policy recommendations to take activities forward and maintain momentum developed in the Collab4Safety project. The policy recommendations included in the policy paper were developed taking into account the feedback received by stakeholders in the Delphi surveys and the various workshops organized during the project. These recommendations and the implementation plan were also discussed with MEPs and relevant stakeholders from the European Commission in interviews conducted by SPI.
A first draft of the road map was presented in the Collab4Safety final event in Montpellier for discussion. SPI also conducted interviews with several experts on food safety to collect feedback on the policy recommendations and the implementation plan developed in the road map. SPI send out information on the project beforehand as beneficial. Prior to the interview (conducted virtually and face-to-face) the experts received a draft of the policy recommendations to allow a more focused discussion. A list of these experts can be found in table 1 (attached pdf).
The interviews started with a brief presentation of the Collab4Safety project: objectives, partners, results of the main outputs – Stakeholder Database and Food Safety Portal.
After this introduction, each one of the recommendations was discussed with the experts: they commented on the recommendations and also provided also feedback on the implementation plan.
Below is a list of the recommendations discussed:
1. National food safety policies need be a high priority for governments. If food safety problems are effectively being mitigated, resources are still required to mitigate potential emerging food safety risks. Policy “complacency” may be problematic and lead to difficulties in managing an unanticipated food safety crisis should one occur. Due account should be taken of regional or international standards, such as Codex Alimentarius, IPPC and OIE when developing national policies, although this does not exclude the possibility of applying different national standards under specific circumstances (for example, where there is a very low risk to health associate with a specific food risk, and where economic consequences of not allowing the product onto local markets would be very negative. Epidemiological surveillance of food-borne diseases is an important research priority.
2. It is important to consider existing and emerging food safety risks as part of any policy portfolio focused on food security, which also requires adoption of a systems approach.
3. Research funding and future research agendas must reflect this evidence requirement.
4. Uncertainties should be communicated to policy-makers with interests in food safety and food security to enable identification of existing knowledge gaps, and facilitate the best use of resources in emerging research agendas.
5. Developing food safety risk mitigation policies together with industry stakeholders is important. Public-private partnerships may facilitate the “co-production” of effective food safety policies.
6. Coordination of food safety activities at a national level should include all relevant stakeholders including ministries of health, agriculture, trade/industry, fisheries, tourism and others, as appropriate.
7. Information networks on food safety issues should work to build confidence among consumers and the media.
8. Training/education in food safety should be on-going and focused on government officials, industry leaders and consumers. Consumer awareness raising to encourage consumers to be quality and safety conscious.
9. A standard step in policy development should be an analysis of whether there are gaps in existing data, whether expert elicitation should be applied, and how expert uncertainties should be incorporated into the resulting policy portfolio.
10. The balance between supply, cost and environmental impact requires careful consideration to meet the challenge of provision of safe, nutritious food, while maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services. This needs to be formally addressed in policy development associated with food risks, which cannot be isolated from other food security issues.
11. Regional or international curation of a range of policy options may facilitate rapid response under urgent circumstances following the occurrence of chronic of acute food safety incidences. Food safety policies must be able to respond to a range of future food safety system shocks. A portfolio of policy responses is required to ensure rapid responses can be activated in response to emerging food safety emergencies. It may be most practical for these to be curated by international or regional food security agencies given the requirement for coherent food security, as opposed to food safety, policies.
12. Increased investment in capacity building in LMICs to enable effective assessment, mitigation of, and communication about, food safety issues is required. Careful assessment of local requirements in this regard will ensure the most efficient allocation of resources.
In general, the feedback received was very positive with the experts highlighting some specific aspects that were then addressed in the road map. These aspects focused the importance of the linkage between social sciences and humanities and natural sciences, the importance of consumer education, the necessity of translating EU expertise to guide developing countries in the development and implementation of food safety policies. More information on the implementation plan is included in the road map (D4.2)
The final version of the road map will be sent to all stakeholders and disseminated in the project’s communication channels (website, Twitter and LinkedIn). It will also be sent to all experts who participated in the interviews. SPI, as responsible for the road map, will ensure that it is also distributed to MEP and relevant industry members at the national, international and EU level. In addition, it will also organise a webinar to present the policy recommendations. This webinar will be live-streamed and made available in the project’s website which will still be online after the end of the project.
The objective of task 4.3: Organisation of an Outreach and Policy Conference Event was to disseminate the conclusions and recommendations of the Delphi survey, (ii) discuss the specific policy recommendations from the project, (iii) discuss and define the implementation plan of those recommendations (i.e. a starting point for the implementation of the Food Safety Road Map); present the Global Food Safety Legislation Platform, Global Food Safety Research Platform and Global Food Safety Training Platform developed in WP2 and future steps to take the activities of the project forward.
To this end a workshop was organised in June 2016 (M47) in Montpellier, France and was hosted by partner CIRAD. This workshop was linked to another event organised by SELAMAT on the same location to increase the output of the C4S workshop. Materials for, and moderation of, the workshop was the responsibility of RIKILT and CIRAD - supported by project partner SPI. The workshop was advertised by SPI through Twitter, the Collab4Safety website and several special mailing using the Collab4Safety expert database. In addition, CIRAD announced the workshop in their network in Africa and DLO-RIKILT within their SELAMAT network. Both the SELAMAT and the C4S workshops were broadcasted on the web and could be followed live. In several mailings and other advertise activities the workshop programme and that this event will be live broadcasted was announced prior to the event.
Workshop (outreach and policy event)
The workshop was briefly structured as follows: the first half day of the workshop was intended to introduce Collab4Safety to the participants and to present the main outcomes of the project, being the results of the global Delphi survey (presented by prof. Lynn Frewer) and an implementation plan of the policy recommendations of food safety collaboration (presented by Dr. Douglas Thompson). The afternoon session of the first day was devoted to international activities on food safety collaboration and emerging risks. Dr. Tobin Robinson presented the activities and views on emerging food safety risks of EFSA, Dr. Luis Vivas-Alegre introduced the EU Horizon 2020 programme and highlighted the possibilities of organisations outside Europe, in particularly Africa to engage, Dr. Masami Takeuchi presented the FAO point of view on international collaboration of food safety, and finally Mr. Brian Milton presented the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP). The programme on the second day (July 1st) was focussed on the engagement with Africa on food safety. Dr. Roderick Kwabena Daddey-Adjei (Ghana) presented a summary of the priorities of food safety in Africa presented in the SELAMAT workshop on 30th of June. Dr. Montet presented the results of a successful implementation of a national food safety system in the Ivory Coast. This was followed by an interactive discussion to explore issues of comment interest and to answer questions from the audience (including those linked via the web). In addition each presentation was followed by questions from the audience.
In total 65 participants attended on June 30th and 51 on July 1st. In addition, 12 experts from Africa registered for the live taping of the workshop. The participants came from all over the world but the majority from European countries. The majority were scientists from academia.
An important objective of the workshop was to discuss the food safety perspective of Africa. To this end the four lectures on food safety perspective of Mauritius, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa were given in the SELAMAT workshop and summarised in the C4S workshop. This has stimulated the representatives at the workshop from these countries to prepare a document that presented their views in this regard . These authors emphasized the importance of international collaboration and capacity building to improve the food safety situation in Africa.
Policy White Paper
Based on all of the project’s research findings, a list of recommendations has been drawn up in D4.4: Policy White Paper. These research findings and respective recommendations are summarized below.
1. Research Finding. Food legislation is frequently outdated, inadequate and fragmented. New legislation needs to be based on the best scientific evidence available.
Policy recommendation. National food safety policies need be a high priority for governments.
2. Research finding: Specific drivers do not increase or decrease specific food safety risks. Rather each driver is associated with increasing or decreasing multiple food safety risks.
Policy recommendation: It is important to consider existing and emerging food safety risks as part of any policy portfolio focused on food security, which also requires adoption of a systems approach.
3. Research finding: Food Safety policies require a foundation of evidence which is able to simultaneously consider evidence originating in the social and natural science areas, and which can apply methodologies with capacity to simultaneously manage quantitative and qualitative data.
Policy recommendation: Research funding and future research agendas must reflect this evidence requirement.
4. Research finding: There is a need to incorporate expert uncertainties regarding the translation of available evidence into policy options.
Policy recommendation: Uncertainties1 should be communicated to policy-makers with interests in food safety and food security to enable identification of existing knowledge gaps, and facilitate the best use of resources in emerging research agendas.
5. Research Finding. The food industry also has capability (and indeed responsibility) to supply safe food. When appropriate, the food industry can provide resources and capacities for food safety and quality assurance monitoring.
Policy recommendation. Developing food safety risk mitigation policies together with industry stakeholders is important. Public-private partnerships may facilitate the “co-production” of effective food safety policies.
6. Research Finding. Effective food safety risk management is contingent on “buy-in” from a range of actors in the food web, including consumers.
Policy recommendations:
• Coordination of food safety activities at a national level should include all relevant stakeholders including ministries of health, agriculture, trade/industry, fisheries, tourism and others, as appropriate.
• Information networks on food safety issues should work to build confidence among consumers and the media.
• Training/education in food safety should be on-going and focused on government officials, industry leaders and consumers. Consumer awareness raising to encourage consumers to be quality and safety conscious.
7. Research finding: Expert uncertainty may vary geographically, potentially as a consequence of local capacity (for example in terms of capability to identify and metricize food risk) or in accordance with other factors.
Policy recommendation: A standard step in policy development should be an analysis of whether there are gaps in existing data, whether expert elicitation should be applied, and how expert uncertainties should be incorporated into the resulting policy portfolio.
8. Research finding: The experts prioritized the need for national and international food safety agencies to be established where this has not already been done.
Policy recommendation: The balance between supply, cost and environmental impact requires careful consideration to meet the challenge of provision of safe, nutritious food, while maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services. This needs to be formally addressed in policy development associated with food risks, which cannot be isolated from other food security issues.
9. Research finding: Given that the food system must be resilient to future shocks (whether these originate in the social or natural environment, and compromise safety or other aspects of food security), and that these system shocks are partly unpredictable in terms of their when and where they will occur, a portfolio policy response is needed.
Policy recommendation: Regional or international curation of a range of policy options may facilitate rapid response under urgent circumstances following the occurrence of chronic of acute food safety incidences.
10. Research finding: There is a need for further capacity building to improve risk assessment and methodological processes at the national level. At the same time, international requirements focus on increasing capacity to facilitate global harmonization of food safety policy.
Policy recommendation: Increased investment in capacity building in LMICs to enable effective assessment, mitigation of, and communication about, food safety issues is required. Careful assessment of local requirements in this regard will ensure the most efficient allocation of resources.
Potential Impact:
The overall objective of Collab4Safety is to optimise the integration of research and training in food safety between the EU and its trading partners in order to facilitate the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food risks, and to provide a sustainable platform for global integration of policy. To this end, Collab4safety developed a comprehensive stakeholders database with a global coverage. This database contains 1,630 experts from 123 countries. It provides a stakeholder list that was used to drive many elements in the project, including the Delphi analysis, and was also the basis of the development of coordination and dissemination activities throughout the project.
The Delphi exercise has been finished and the analysis provides, on a global level, consensus regarding gaps in international research, innovation and training activities and policies in the area of food safety. The main conclusions are as follows: International experts express the opinion that there are, in general, no major differences between the drivers of existing and emerging food safety risks within the timeframe of the next five years. Demographic change, economic driving forces, resource shortages and environmental driving forces were identified as the primary drivers of both existing and emerging food safety risks. Limited numbers of interactions were found between the key drivers of existing and emerging risk and specific food safety risks, indicating that existing and emerging food safety risks have the same drivers. Introducing policies that affect a single driver may have impacts on multiple food safety risks. A “systems” approach to identifying, managing and mitigating food safety risks may therefore represent a more useful policy tool. Attempting to manage or mitigate single risks at a single point in time, or within a limited geographical frame, potentially will have limited impacts on global food safety.
This research has also highlighted the risk of developing policies that may be founded on evidence associated with expert uncertainties. While experts considered the impact of certain drivers to be low, their level of certainty regarding their opinion was also low. This may reflect attitudinal ambivalence regarding the importance of specific drivers, or the fact that they considered the driver to be irrelevant. For these reasons, the metricisation of expert uncertainty in policy orientated decision-making models regarding food safety (and beyond) may be flawed. Policymakers should be mindful of expert uncertainty, and regard such expert uncertainty as indicative of gaps in knowledge. Finally, the identification of barriers to effective food safety mitigation and future research requirements suggested the need to develop policies which foster sustained international networks and mechanisms for effective data sharing between food safety stakeholders in expert communities globally. This will act to facilitate the international harmonisation of food safety standards globally rather than tolerate exceptions that has previously been advocated.
In addition, the portal on food safety that was developed in the first reporting period provides a comprehensive ordered overview on food safety that enables the global research and policy societies to find up-to-date information on policies (legislation), research and training. The results of the above described activities are integrated to result in policy recommendations to support sustainable collaboration on food safety between EU and its main trading partners. Furthermore they will support sharing best practices and sustainable collaboration.
Collab4safety will support the development of policies which facilitate European competiveness by helping to:
• Develop and maintain European advantage regarding innovation in food safety science.
• Optimise the commercialisation trajectory for European export markets.
• Maintain European consumer safety associated with imported foods and ingredients.
• Increase European competiveness through reducing the incidence of food recalls and implementation of other control measures, which, in turn, will improve consumer confidence in the European food supply.
Throughout the Collab4Safety Project’s lifetime, consortium members have systematically implemented dissemination activities and applied tools in order to communicate activities at a global scale, to defined target groups, and also with the view to exploit the project results.
As previously mentioned, the Food Safety Stakeholders Database was the basis of the project’s dissemination activities, which were directed to a large community working in the food safety field, including members from Food regulatory agencies, Policy makers, Food safety authorities/agencies, Industry, NGO, Academic/research organisations and Multinational/global organisations. The total population of the database is 1,630 experts, from 123 countries.
The project website, www.collab4Safety.eu was one of the main communication tools of the project. It contains information on the project, its objectives, activities, expected results, partners, contacts, all the project events, online stakeholder database, access to the Food Safety Portal, and a space for subscribing to the project mailing list. It was continuously updated with news, and its download area has all the project public documents, promotional materials and events presentations. This will promote project exploitation since stakeholders will be able to actually access the project deliverables available to the public and also other relevant documents. Until the end of August 2016, the website counted a total of 11,952 views, 82.63% of which were from new visitors.
The project is also present in social networks, used both to disseminate the project, its events and the achieved results. The Collab4Safety Twitter (@Collab4Safety) account has 249 followers and 148 tweets, whereas its LinkedIn group counts with 65 members.
Specific dissemination materials were developed in order to support all project activities and disseminate the project in external events and in other project meetings related with food safety. The materials include brochures, periodic newsletters, roll-ups, pocket guides, press releases published in several media sources, flyers, videos and a slide presentation. The project also produced a short 3-minute movie on the food safety governance in Europe and the importance of international cooperation on request of the EU scientific officer of Collab4Safety. This video was shown in the EU pavilion during the Milan EXPO in the first week of May 2015 period (until October), and the total view count on Youtube as of August 2016 is 1186 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T_iOXuIOBs).
Throughout the project, the Collab4Safety partners participated in external international and local conferences/meetings, at which they disseminated and raised awareness around the project findings. These included, for instance, oral presentations at the School for Advanced Residue Analysis in Food (SARAF), the Safefood Biotoxins Annual Conference and the 6th China Beijing International Food Safety Forum, distribution of brochures at the Inprofood project workshop in Porto, Portugal, the 17th National Encounter Analytical Chemistry (ENQA) and the International Conference on the future potential of EU-Russian science, technology and innovation cooperation, just to give a few examples. A more detailed list can be consulted in Section 4.2 of this document.
The consortium organized a series of Regional Events and Stakeholder Workshops that aimed not only at disseminating the project, but also to discuss both regional and global issues related to food safety, as well as the development of the Food Safety Portal or of the Delphi study. All the events featured local and international speakers, and participants were mostly representatives of national agencies, members of international organizations, policy makers, industry and nongovernmental organizations members. In total, over 450 stakeholders attended the project events (see table 2 in attached pdf).
Project partners also established synergies with various relevant initiatives and institutions. These collaborations consists of joining efforts in terms of dissemination activities, most specifically using each other’s communication tools and channels (newsletters, events, websites, network of contacts, etc.) to disseminate activities of these initiatives. Some of these initiatives and institutions include SELAMAT - a network on Safety enhancement of Edible products, Legislation, Analysis and Management, with AAA countries, by mutual Training & research, the Global Food Safety Partnership (World Bank) - Public-private initiative dedicated to improving the safety of food in middle income and developing countries, and CACAARI - the Central Asia and the Caucasus Association of Agricultural Research Institutions.
The results of the analysis on the costs and benefits of creating a sustainable structure and the business plan were discussed within the C4S consortium and a proposal was made for the SELAMAT consortium. The objective of the sustainable coordination structure as foreseen by the Collab4Safety (C4S) consortium was to stimulate exchange of food safety information about research findings, capacity building and policies and to support the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food safety risks. This sustainable network structure will contribute to the development of trust between key players and institutions, which is needed to create an international forum for exchange of information and opinions on matters pertaining to food safety in the food and feed chains.
Because of the success of SELAMAT (www.selamat.net) and possibility to be taken up by this organisation in the future, it has been decided to implement a similar legal structure. SELAMAT aims to develop into a global coverage and C4S may provide that. C4S has several unique competitive advantages that makes C4S interesting for SELAMAT and for future clients.
Many of the partners of the network have long experience in international networks and have a mission of their own organizations to work globally. CIRAD, as the main French institute that supports the French government in research for agriculture in the developing world, for instance has a worldwide network of contacts with knowledge on agriculture, food production and food safety
The results of WP3 have been presented in a management meeting of SELAMAT and the SELAMAT members agreed to start the process of integrating C4S services and products into their portfolio. C4S members were also welcomed as SELAMAT partners. The SELAMAT consortium accepted the different forms of contribution to the consortium as proposed by Collab4Safety but it will be decided case by case (for each new partner and their contribution) under which conditions a new organisation may become a SELAMAT member.
The Food Safety Roadmap and the Policy white paper, mentioned in previous sections, are main project outcomes that will be extensively used and exploited beyond the lifetime of the project. Their purpose is to support collaboration and coordination of food safety research, training and policies on global dimensions, and also to ensure that existing institutions dealing with food safety will adopt/ use the methods and products developed. In particular, the Policy white paper on food safety will integrate the projects results, resulting in policy recommendations to support sustainable collaboration on food safety between EU and its main trading partners. This Policy White Paper has been submitted to, and discussed with, representatives of the European Commission and members of the European Parliament working in the area of food safety to draw support for the policy recommendations given in that document. These policy recommendations could, for instance, be used for the European food safety legislative agenda or future research calls in Horizon2020. The same is true for national research programmes of European countries, as well as third countries (China, Brazil, Russia, South-East Asia, etc.) due to the dissemination opportunities offered by the merger with the SELEMAT network.
List of Websites:
Project website: www.collab4safety.eu
Register in the Stakeholder Database: www.collab4safety.eu/access_database
Subscribe to mailing list: www.collab4safety.eu/mailing-list
Coordinator and secretary: Dr. Hans J.P. Marvin (coordinator)
RIKILT - Institute of Food Safety
E-mail: hans.marvin@wur.nl
Tel. +31 317 480342
Mr. Piet Stouten (secretary)
RIKILT - Institute of Food Safety
E-mail: piet.stouten@wur.nl
Tel. +31 317 480429
Furthermore, project logo, diagrams or photographs illustrating and promoting the work of the project (including videos, etc...) as well as the list of all beneficiaries with the corresponding contact names can be submitted without any restriction.
The goal of the Collab4Safety consortium was to establish a global network on food safety with the aim of developing a sustainable coordination platform for the exchange of food safety information about research findings, capacity building and policies, and to facilitate the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food risks. The project consisted of five work packages: the global mapping of food safety, dissemination to global society, developing a sustainable coordination structure, having a sustainable impact, and the final overall management work package.
As part of the dissemination work package, a stakeholder database was started. This public database aimed to increase brokerage and future collaborations between parties with common interests. It allows searching stakeholders by name, area of expertise, job title, organization, type of organization and country. It is accessible through the project website. A total of 1,630 experts, from 123 countries, are registered in the database. Other major dissemination activities included: regional events and workshops organized by the Collab4Safety consortium, a food safety portal divided into five thematic sections (food safety news, institutions, education and training, research and innovation, and legislation), and finally a 3 minute movie on food safety for the European Commission and a 1 minute clip on the Collab4Safety project were produced – both videos were shown at the EU pavilion at the Milan EXPO.
To map international research, existing and emerging food safety problems, innovation and training activities and policies in the area of food safety and to identify gaps in knowledge salient to policy development, an initial scoping workshop was organized, followed by a Delphi survey. The initial scoping workshop was intended to identify the issues to be explored in the Delphi survey. In this project, 106 experts from the stakeholder database provided input for the Delphi survey. Multinomial regression and model averaging of the Delphi results identified that consumer priorities, demographic change, media representations, political will, resource shortages and water security were the primary drivers of both existing and emerging food safety risks. Moreover, single drivers were shown to have multiple impacts upon food safety risks. From a methodological perspective, the identification of socio-economic and biophysical drivers which have multiple impacts on food safety risks emphasise the need for a transdisciplinary and systems approach to food safety management and mitigation. From a policy perspective, the finding that one specific driver may potentially mitigate the impacts of multiple food safety hazards, has important implications for policy development prioritisation. A high diversity in expert certainty – particularly with regards to drivers of existing and emerging food safety risks internationally – highlights the dangers of basing policy decisions exclusively on expert opinions and suggests the importance of collecting of empirical evidence from a range of stakeholders is necessary in order to establish whether a driver is, in fact, a policy priority.
In order to develop a sustainable coordination structure, the key factors behind the success of existing sustainable networks were assessed by analysing selected examples of such networks. A network is considered to be sustainable if relevant activities are pursued and outputs are maintained or developed after the end of EU funding. The key factors that were identified were related to: (i) very clear objectives and expected results from the beginning, (ii) effective management and leadership should be decided very early in the process, (iii) involvement of consortium members should be assured from the beginning, (iv) capacity for capturing necessary resources to become sustainable, and (v) the design of the consortium. Based on those results regarding best practices, an inventory was made of suitable coordination structures for the future of the Collab4Safety Consortium and a subsequent business plan with financial details was prepared. Many of the partners belong to the SELAMAT network which gave them experience in working together in a network, which is a competitive advantage. Moreover, the SELAMAT network could be used as a base for upgrading simultaneously with C4S. Hence, it was decided to start the process of integrating C4S services and products into the SELAMAT members’ portfolios to ensure sustainability of the C4S results.
Project Context and Objectives:
As a consequence of the increasing complexity, and globalisation, of the food supply, food safety problems are rapidly spreading internationally and therefore food safety risks must be addressed holistically at regional, national and international levels. The effect of drivers of food safety risks, such as climate change, fraud (e.g. the melamine crisis), new technologies (e.g. biotechnology, nanotechnology), and demographic developments (e.g. increased urbanisation and international travel) are experienced around the world, albeit at different levels and with different health, environmental and economic impacts. Responses to these challenges have elements which are rooted in different levels of knowledge, cultural traditions and practices, and socio-historical context, all of which are also subject to temporal change and influence by these external events. Within the European Research Area, and within similar programmes elsewhere in the world, a huge amount of data is generated that could help policy makers and industry to deal successfully with the challenges associated with food safety. High quality research and innovation are prerequisites for improving the quality of life, enhancing social welfare and boosting economic competitiveness. Broader and more inclusive internationally cooperation on food safety than is currently in operation will lead to more efficient use of research funds, sharing of best practices and a durable partnership with the EU’s major food trading partners (being Latin-America (Brazil, Argentina), US and China).
The objectives and activities proposed by Collab4Safety were to contribute to an increased cooperation and coordination on food safety (e.g. research, policies and training) on a global level and consequently would contribute to improving quality of life, enhancing social welfare, and boosting the economic competitiveness of the European food industry. To achieve the project objectives, the Collab4Safety project was subdivided into 4 interrelated research work packages (WPs) that would conduct specific activities. The following WPs and tasks were included:
WP1. Global mapping of food safety by means of a well-established and tested Delphi method. This investigation identified gaps in current knowledge, and mapped global interests in food safety research. In addition, existing training and capacity building requirements were identified, together with identification of policy gaps at a global level.
WP2. Dissemination to global society. The activities employed in this WP were directed to the development of a global stakeholders’ database and that was used to ensure relevant stakeholders are interested and engaged in the project’s activities and objectives. In addition, tools were developed to inform stakeholders about relevant on-going activities elsewhere in the world (via the Food Safety Portal) and to raise the general awareness of the project (via website, leaflets, social media, etc.).
WP3. Developing a sustainable coordination structure. The main objective of this WP was to identify best options to develop a sustainable collaboration on the identified areas and stakeholders.
WP4. Integration of the output from WP1-WP3 to ensure a sustainable impact of Collab4Safety. This WP integrated the methods and procedures developed in WP1-3 and used this information to develop a policy position paper detailing research needs in the area of global food safety, integrating information across emerging science requirements, capacity and capability building internationally, and regulation.
Within the context of WP1 an initial scoping workshop was organized to identify emerging issues, followed by a Delphi survey. The Delphi methodology makes use of two or more rounds of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts. A summary of the results is provided to the panel by the facilitator after every round, after which the panel members are asked to revise their opinion in the next round. This research applied the Delphi methodology to collate international expert opinion on current food safety systems regarding emerging food risk identification, including addressing gaps in international research activities and knowledge, in order to provide input for the development of on developing policies to promote more efficient identification, prevention and mitigation of emerging food risks at a global level. An important element of expert decision-making associated with existing and emerging food risks, and the drivers of these, is the extent to which experts are certain or uncertain regarding their opinion. Experts were also asked not only their opinions regarding the drivers and importance of food safety risks, but also how uncertain they were regarding their opinions. This is relevant as, if experts rate a particular food risk driver as highly important, but are uncertain in their opinion, further research will be required to clarify whether the food risk or food risk driver is, in fact, a policy priority. Although systematic evaluation of uncertainty has been included in Delphi decision-making models in previous research, it has been infrequently addressed in the area of food risk policy. T
Emerging food risk identification, prevention and mitigation will, at the global level, require harmonisation of existing evidence regarding what is, and what is not, known about emerging risks worldwide. Emerging food risks are not necessarily new risks. Some have only recently been identified due to improved detection techniques, while others are the result of mutations and adaptations of well-known microorganisms. In some cases, risks emerge as an unintended side effect of a deliberate control measure. Other risks may emerge in specific regions due to changes in external conditions. For example, climate change may introduce tropical food safety hazards in regions with a (previously) moderate climate. Global food risk management can only be as effective as local food risk management, which in turn will depend on the effectiveness of localised regulation (and the extent to which these regulations are enforced locally), socio-cultural factors (e.g. linked to local cooking practices), and the immediate environment. Local factors may determine whether a food risk emerges in the first place, and whether it can be identified, managed and, if necessary, mitigated.
WP2 intended to raise general awareness of the project, actively disseminate the project activities and deliverables to project stakeholders, provide a comprehensive ordered portal on food safety that will enable the global research and policy societies to find up-to-date information on policies (legislation), research and training, make project stakeholders interested and engaged in the project (e.g. WP1 and WP4), and to facilitate the implementation of other project work packages. This WP consisted of four main tasks: (i) provision of a continuously updated stakeholder database, (ii) development of a communication plan, (iii) creation of a food safety portal, and (iv) implementation of communication activities.
The stakeholder database would be used to drive many elements of the project, including the Delphi analysis, and be the basis of the development of coordination and dissemination activities throughout the project. A specific set of selection criteria was to be developed to ensure both that the list includes all stakeholder types and that the most relevant stakeholders are identified in each type. The pool of stakeholders was intended to include those from regulatory, policy, industry (including SMEs), risk analysis and NGO communities. The database would also include representatives of relevant multi-national and global organizations, such as the WHO and FAO. Communication and dissemination activities and tools would include the following elements: project website, social networking communication tools, external meetings, seminars and conferences, project internal events and dissemination materials such as brochures, posters, leaflets, etc. Finally, the communication plan would include a series of indicators for measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of the project communication and dissemination activities.
The primary objective of WP3 was to create a sustainable cooperation structure that could be used during the project and could continue beyond the project to maintain the coordination of actions to promote food safety. In this context, task 3.1 Selecting best practice examples had the objective of reviewing examples of existing networks that attained sustainability after initial public funding had been discontinued, and whose results are still seen as relevant in terms of designing research agendas, policy development and implementation, or training efforts. This overview was decided to include researchers, consumers, producer organizations / platforms / networks focused on the different aspects of food safety, or other areas of applied food research and policy translation. The process would include the use of interviews that would be conducted in order to aggregate insights from key individuals who had demonstrated successful implementation of networks and platforms with similar ambitions to the current project, and who could provide insights into the critical success factors, and potential barriers to sustainability. The analysis of best practices would also include the views of members of international institutions dealing with issues of food safety in order to evaluate the opinions regarding the development of a sustainable platform on food safety. The opinions of partners, through the answer to a small questionnaire, would also allow inclusion of their reflections due to their own experience and the experience of their organizations.
The second objective of WP3 was to discuss and propose a sustainable collaboration structure. This involved the development of a model for an organization structure and governance that would ensure sustainability beyond the lifetime of the project network. Therefore, in the last tasks and for the development of future sustainability; a clear definition of the future objectives of the network, its target end-users and audiences and accountable goals would be evaluated. Also a cost/benefit evaluation of the existence of a network and its maintenance was performed. The development of a business plan/business model required the evaluation of alternative financing mechanisms, as well as resource estimates for ensuring short term, medium term and long term viability of the coordination structure. The business plan for delivering a sustainable coordination structure will ensure the continuity of the work done within the present project.
The overall objective of WP4 was to develop and implement a food safety road map that would facilitate a sustainable global cooperation on food safety. The Collab4Safety project was intended to deliver products and methods that would support collaboration and coordination of food safety research, training and policies on global dimensions. However, a serious pitfall, which was observed in many projects, was that the momentum created by the project is lost after the project ends. Increasing the awareness of projects results at the stakeholder level is not enough to ensure a sustainable impact. It is important to engage with stakeholders at an early stage and to focus the project’s activities towards their needs, hence developing a two-way interaction process. Such an approach has been successful for the EU FP6 project SELAMAT (EU-ASEM platform on food safety; www.selamat.net) which has now been sustainable for more than 8 years. Collab4Safety would build on the experience of that success.
Sustainable impact may be realised in two ways: (i) by creating a sustainable structure that promotes and exploits the projects products after the projects ends (such as for example SELAMAT), (ii) by ensuring that existing institutions dealing with food safety will adopt/ use the methods and products developed. In WP3 these options were to be analysed.
Project Results:
Food safety has been recognised by many governments worldwide as a major challenge, affecting consumer health, producing inefficiencies in animal and plant production systems, and creating trade barriers across the global food web.
Within the European Research Area, and within similar programmes elsewhere in the world, a huge amount of data is being generated that could help policy makers and industry to deal successfully with the challenges associated with food safety. High quality research and innovation are prerequisites for improving the quality of life, enhancing social welfare and boosting economic competitiveness. It is expected that broader and more inclusive international cooperation on food safety than the one currently in operation will lead to a more efficient use of research funds, sharing of best practices and a durable partnership with the European Union’s major food trading partners.
Collab4Safety is aimed at contributing to an increased cooperation and coordination on food safety at a global level and consequently at contributing to improving quality of life, enhancing social welfare and boosting the economic competitiveness of the European food industry. The Collab4Safety project started on 1 August, 2012 and ran for 4 years, counting with the participation of 10 partners from 8 different countries. The present report shows the total progress made within Collab4Safety.
The primary task for WP1 was to conduct a Delphi survey. The Delphi methodology makes use of two or more rounds of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts. A summary of the results is provided to the panel by the facilitator after every round, after which the panel members are asked to revise their opinion in the next round. To identify issues to be explored in the Delphi survey, a scoping workshop was held in Brussels on March 5, 2013. Specifically, the workshop aimed to discuss the identification of key issues driving the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food risks, knowledge gaps with respect to existing and developing policy frameworks, and possible future food risk policy scenarios. As the number of experts registered in the newly developed database (Deliverable 2.4 of WP2) was limited at the time of organising the scoping workshop, a diverse group of external experts was selected using the partners’ networks. In addition, it was decided that the number of consortium members from third countries (e.g. Brazil, China and Russia) would be representative enough to have a diverse final sample. Accordingly, 38 experts from the EU member states were invited through email to participate in the workshop. The total number of participants was 29, consisting of 14 consortium members and15 external experts from Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom.
The structure and moderation of the workshop was conducted by UNEW and the logistics were coordinated by DLO-RIKILT. Potential themes that were discussed in the workshop were identified by the UNEW team. However, all project partners were asked to contribute prior to the workshop to the identification of the themes and structuring process. Their contributions were collated and examined to finalize the structure. A break-out activity document was prepared to inform workshop participants about what they were expected to do and how to contribute to the session.
The workshop was held on March 5th, 2013 at the Northern Ireland Executive Offices in Brussels. It was moderated by an external professional moderator, Dr. Sharron Kuznesof from Newcastle University. Her role as a moderator was to ensure the transparency, impartiality, focus, fair involvement, good timing, and neutral atmosphere during the workshop.
The workshop started with a brief talk by the moderator to welcome the participants and provide them brief information about the workshop program. The program started with an introduction by the project coordinator, Hans Marvin from DLORIKILT, and continued with three plenary talks given by Masami Takeuchi from Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), and Prof. Lynn Frewer and Dr. Carmen Hubbard from Newcastle University. These presentations informed the participants about Collab4safety project, FAO’s similar activities on food safety, issues to be discussed in the workshop, and the Delphi methodology (Annex 4). After each presentation, the audience was invited to comment and ask questions. In the afternoon, in the break-out session, participants were assigned into three groups. Each group had a moderator, a rapporteur and an observer, who were consortium members. Each group discussed different topics based on the break-out activity document.
Each group received a list of themes (e.g. drivers) and was invited to discuss and identify for each of these drivers, existing threats to food safety, emerging risks to food safety, research and training needs, evidence needed for policy development, and 10 national and international policy gaps in relation to different drivers of food safety.
The moderator in each group ensured that all the themes were discussed and that all participants in his/her group contributed to session. The rapporteurs were taken notes and prepared the feedback from each group. Following the break-out session, the rapporteurs presented a 10-min summary, informing the participants about the discussions in each group. Participants were then asked for their feedback and questions. Rapporteurs submitted their reports about the group discussions after the end of the workshop. These reports were assessed to identify the outcomes of the workshop. The group discussions identified two drivers of emerging food risk; exploitation of resources (e.g. energy, differential population, vulnerability) and media. Suggested research areas about media were as follows:
• How does the media pick issues and emphasize them;
• How can the media influence governments, industry and people change their opinions;
• How the media influences is deponent upon the level of media independence in a country.
Based on the outcomes of the scoping workshop, the Delphi survey (in English) was developed by the UNEW team, in collaboration with DLO-RIKILT and all partners were provided with the opportunity to comment on and refine the document. It was initially piloted to 7 experts from academia and private organizations in Europe. They were asked both to complete the survey and make comments and suggestions. As the initial piloting resulted in similar comments and suggestions about the survey, it was concluded that piloting with 7 experts is sufficient to finalize the survey. Accordingly, the survey was adjusted based on the results of the pilot study and translated from English into different languages of the project consortium (i.e. French, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Polish). Back translations were not performed as the survey does not contain any sensitive contexts for which back translation is necessary. Programming, hosting, and online data processing (i.e. preparing the raw data file) of the survey in seven languages were performed by a professional survey company. Potential participants were identified from the stake holder database developed in WP2, and selected according to geographical dispersion, relevant expertise, sectorial representation, and demographic characteristics (e.g. gender, age). A diverse sample of five hundred and three experts was invited through email to complete the questionnaire. Data collection started on December 9, 2013 and finished on January 8, 2014. The final sample consisted of 106 experts, representative of 51 countries globally.
This research has demonstrated that, in terms of expert opinion, specific potential drivers of food risk do not increase or decrease specific food safety risks, but that there exists a complex set of interactions which have positive and negative impacts on existing and emerging food risks. Each potential driver is associated with increasing or decreasing multiple food safety risks, and cannot be considered in isolation of other factors, either in research or policy. In order to develop policies to effectively mitigate food safety risks, the adoption of a “systems approach” is needed, which is capable of simultaneously modelling the impacts of multiple drivers, and generating a portfolio policy response based on the impacts of different potential future food safety scenarios. In other words, developing policies which influence a single driver in a single geographic location will have very little impact on existing or emerging food safety risks. Traditional reductionist approaches to delivering evidence for policy makers will not enable the effective translation of policy outcomes to occur. While this conclusion is not novel (see, for example, the global Food Security Programme currently running in the U.K (http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/programme/activities/) the results support the idea that multiple interacting drivers of risk (an important component of food security) need to be considered as part of an evidence base for policy responses.
An important factor shaping the discourse about food security, which also addresses food safety, is the complex, qualitative, and systemic view of the post-agricultural production side of the food system, which emphasises nutrition as well as food availability, and the role of human behaviour (including that associated with producers, the food industry, and consumers). As a consequence, decisions regarding food safety need to be made within this systemic context using diverse information from multiple sources (including stakeholder) inputs into models and identification of relevant knowledge and data. Interventions also require the adoption of a systems approach as is common in other areas of public health policy. The experts prioritised the need for national and international food safety agencies, but it is possible that, as a consequence of the interrelationship between food safety and food security, such agencies might be better placed to manage broad food (and nutrition) security through application of an integrated, coherent policy response, particularly at the international, intergovernmental agency level.
In addition, such a systemic approach cannot ignore other aspects of food security, as it is likely to interact with food quality on the one hand, and food availability on the other. Understanding this complexity is central to the development of methodologies. For example, the research presented here has demonstrated that climate change is already negatively impacting food production, and may also have negative impacts on the nutritional quality of food. At the same time, malnutrition (including, for example, nutrient intakes, including nutrient needs at different stages the life cycle, and obesity) continues to have negative effects on public health, with disproportionately negative effects on vulnerable groups such as the less affluent, or the elderly.
Simultaneous consideration of food safety and sustainability of production, the energy provided by the diet, and its nutritional quality within the entire food system is required in terms of the evidence generated by research, and its subsequent translation into concrete policies. To be secure, the food system must ensure both supply and demand, and address food safety, quality and availability simultaneously. The balance between supply, cost and environmental impact requires careful consideration to meet the challenge of provision of safe, nutritious food whilst maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services. Given that the food system must be resilient to future shocks (whether these originate in the social or natural environment, and compromise safety or other aspects of food security) a portfolio policy response is required, which will enable flexible responses to predictable, but uncertain, future events.
A paper has been submitted for publication: Helen Kendall, Gulbanu Kaptan, Gavin Stewart, Matt Grainger, Sharron Kuznesof, Paul Naughton, Carmen Hubbard, Marian Raley, Hans Marvin , and Lynn J. Frewer. Drivers of existing and emerging food safety risks: Expert opinion and uncertainty regarding multiple impacts
The primary task of WP2 was to raise general awareness of the project, to actively disseminate the project activities and deliverables to project stakeholders, to provide a comprehensive ordered portal on food safety that would enable the global research and policy societies to find up-to-date information on policies (legislation), research and training, to make project stakeholders interested and engaged in the project (e.g. WP1 and WP4), and to facilitate the implementation of other project work packages. To that end, various activities have been undertaken.
At the beginning of the project, a communication plan was developed. The plan aims to serve as a support to the implementation of dissemination activities throughout the project by defining its target groups, communication contents, the communication and dissemination activities and tools to be applied throughout the project’s lifetime, communication action plans (global and individual) and monitoring and evaluation indicators. Above all, this plan was intended to be a practical tool to be used by all partners to develop their individual and collective activities efficiently and contribute to the global objective of the project. To keep the description of the project’s dissemination activities up to date, the communication plan was updated annually with input from all work package leaders.
Collab4Safety’s most important activities within WP2 were related to the development of the stakeholder database, regional events and workshops, and the food safety portal. These activities are discussed below.
Stakeholder Database
The Food Safety Stakeholders Database was used as the basis of the project’s dissemination activities, as well as of other coordination activities, including the Delphi analysis. This public database aimed to increase brokerage and future collaborations between parties with common interests. It allows searching stakeholders by name, area of expertise, job title, organization, type of organization and country. It is accessible through the project website and available at the following direct link: http://web.spi.pt/collab4safety/database.
Since the project target groups comprise a large community working in the food safety field, there was a need to specify stakeholder categories considered crucial to be reached during the project. These are: Food regulatory agencies, Policy makers, Food safety authorities/agencies, Industry, NGO, Academic/research organisations and Multinational/global organisations. A total of 1,630 experts, from 123 countries, registered in the database.
Collab4Safety Regional Events and Workshops
The consortium organized a series of Regional Events and Stakeholder Workshops that aimed at both disseminating the project and also discussing regional and global issues related to food safety, as well as the development of the Food Safety Portal, the Delphi study and the Roadmap containing policy recommendations. All the events featured local and international speakers, and participants were mostly representatives of national agencies, members of international organizations, policy makers, industry and nongovernmental organizations members.
Food Safety Portal
The Collab4Safety Food Safety Portal provides a comprehensive gateway to multiple resources of high relevance to food safety that will enable global research and policy communities to find up-to-date information on food safety organisations, research and innovation, legislation and training. It is designed as an online tool for the rapid sharing of information to enhance food safety around the globe. The Portal can be found at http://collab4safetyfoodsafetyportal.eu/
The information contained has been categorised and divided into 5 thematic sections:
1. Food Safety News Portal. This portal provides links to up to date news, articles and published information on a variety of aspects of food safety. A key aspect of the portal is the inter connectivity to rapid recalls and alerts systems and news releases. The available news sources, representing slightly different types of information provision for food safety issues, have been divided in the following categories:
• Alerts - used by local authorities to inform consumers of food safety issues.
• Information sources - provide informational resources for food safety issues
• News sources - provide up to date news bulletins of particular relevance to food safety
The food safety news portal provides much-needed coverage of topics important not only to the core stakeholders of food industry leaders, academics and regulatory bodies, but also to all individuals who care about the safety of the food supply chain.
2. Food Safety Institutions Portal enables stakeholders to connect with key food safety Institutes on a global scale, and provides information and contact details for these organisations. The portal highlights the organisations of food safety professionals including authorities, ministries, institutes and standards organisations contributing to advancing food and feed safety worldwide. The information on the database can be selected, through the Institutions search, based on the criteria of region, country and type of institution. The name of the institutions and associated webpage links are provided to match the search criteria.
3. Education and training portal provides access to key initiatives for developing and progressing in knowledge in the areas of food safety at both the academic (undergraduate and postgraduate), industrial and regulatory level. The portal thus allows a free search of training initiatives by subject, type and/or country of origin, and groups each initiative by provider, displaying additional information, such as title, type of provision, target audience and its frequency. Each initiative links to the associated website, where more detailed information can be found.
4. Research and Innovation portal enables access to key projects and information on innovative and new areas of research in the food safety arena. This provides an overview of research activities at a global, European and national level. The project search feature allows access to this database connected to CORDIS and features a large number of projects funded at the European level (FP4, FP5, FP6, FP7 and H2020). The projects have been classified under country and into five key food safety thematic areas.
Additional information on research and projects at the national and international level can be sourced from the funded projects section. This section provides information on funding agencies which have published records on the projects that they have funded. The funding agencies are listed per continent and, once selected, the search feature on the funding agency website can be used to find funded projects.
5. Legislation portal functions as a 'guide' through on-line available information on legislation for contaminants, pesticides, veterinary drugs and additives. The information for the legislation section is directly interlinked to the search information on the SELAMAT website.
Next to these three primary dissemination activities, social networking communication tools and other promotional materials were developed. Collab4Safety has a Twitter account (with 249 followers and 148 tweets) and a LinkedIn group (65 members) both used to disseminate the project, its events and the achieved project’s results. In the last reporting period, efforts were directed to promote both partners’ events and the project’s own final policy conference event. Other promotional materials include all the project’s newsletters, flyers, 2 press releases and brochures (in English, Russian, French, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin), one slide presentation, the roll up (also in all the languages mentioned above), 2 pocket guides (in English) and videos and online press. The project was also disseminated through press releases and booklets in local and European electronic media.
The overall objective of WP3 was to create a sustainable cooperation structure that would be used during the project and would continue beyond the project to maintain the coordination of actions to promote food safety. Activities to be coordinated were based on the results from Delphi survey and later activities. This WP consisted of four tasks: a report on best practices of governance and maintenance of networks (task 3.1) a report on suitable coordination structures (task 3.2) a report detailing the evaluation of the costs/benefits of creating a sustainable network to follow (task 3.3) and finally a business plan (task 3.4).
In task 3.1 an analysis on best practices of governance and maintenance of networks was performed. A strategic approach was followed to gather information on projects or networks that became sustainable, with or without the initial funding stages from financing agencies, which was to consult different sources of information. Although most of the examples that were presented in the report are related to projects/networks that started in their inception with EC funding, other examples are from networks that had not received an initially EC or other financing agencies funding. Despite Collab4Safety being focussed on Food Safety, the research performed was not restricted to this area, on the contrary, it tried to be the more broad possible in terms of thematic, objectives and partners. From interviewees’ opinions, the experience of members of Collab4Safety and the information gathered from different available publications, some success factors were highlighted such as: (i) having very clear objectives and expected results from the beginning, (ii) effective management and leadership should be decided very early in the process, (iii) involvement of consortium members should be assured from the beginning, (iv) capacity for capturing necessary resources to become sustainable, and (v) the design of the consortium. The report provides the conclusions concerning the study conducted in task 3.1 towards the analysis of collected examples of sustainable networks. This study was not intended to be exhaustive but to present a global overview of the different types of networks that were found.
In task 3.2 the first part of the work was dedicated to designing sustainable collaboration/ coordination structure in practice. The approach that was used to gather information to proceed with the design of a sustainable collaboration/ coordination structure was based on: (i) results from task 3.1 (ii) direct discussions and consultations with several Collab4Safety and SELAMAT partners, and (iii) the responses obtained to a the questionnaire that was prepared by iBET and RIKILT and sent to all partners of Collab4Safety. Several aspects were taken in consideration: 1) what makes a network unique; 2) considerations on how to design the management of the network; 3) the types of partners that could be included in the network; 4) the assessment of financial issues and the corresponding setting forward of several financing possibilities; 5) the measurements of the success of a network.
The second part of the work of Task 3.2 was dedicated to gathering financial data on the potential expenses a network, when becoming sustainable, has to incorporate. The following items were found to be the ones that have absolutely to taken into consideration: management, travel, mixed expenses, organization of workshops, and organization of training events. In terms of management were considered essential the expenses in labour of a coordinator, a secretary and an accounting officer. The budget will be based on hours of work/yearly. Travels were also considered for the coordinator and secretary, for two meetings a year. Mixed expenses consider the production of flyers, stationary material, and maintenance of website of the network. Other types of costs considered were the ones with the organization of two workshops per year. The amounts reported in mixed expenses consider the invitation of 2 experts from outside of the network, 2 days of activity and per diem and other expenses that have to be taken into consideration for the organization of one workshop, considering 70 participants. Finally expenses that can be foreseen with the organization of two training events per year were detailed considering the invitation of 2 experts outside of the network, 2 days of activity and per diem, as well as the expenses that have to be taken into consideration for the organization of the events, considering 20 participants.
In task 3.3 the final design of the governance model for sustainable collaboration was tested and evaluated. Important features to consider were; economic viability (who will pay), objectives (what do you want to achieve) and a clear governance structure (how should the network be organised). Work conducted in the previous periods was aimed to learn from the experiences of other initiatives having a similar objective (i.e. task 3.1). Based on this information a governance structure was proposed (i.e. task 3.2). The present task (i.e. task 3.3) focussed on the economic aspects of a sustainable coordination structure. To this end a report was prepared detailing costs and benefits of creating a sustainable structure (D3.3) and a business plan was developed (D3.4). The results were discussed within the C4S consortium and a proposal was made for the SELAMAT consortium. The objective of the sustainable coordination structure as foreseen by the Collab4Safety (C4S) consortium was to stimulate exchange of food safety information about research findings, capacity building and policies and to support the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food safety risks.
This sustainable network structure will contribute to the development of trust between key players and institutions, which is needed to create an international forum for exchange of information and opinions on matters pertaining to food safety in the food and feed chains.
Because of the success of SELAMAT (www.selamat.net) and possibility to be taken up by this organisation in the future, it has been decided to implement a similar legal structure. SELAMAT aims to develop into a global coverage and C4S may provide that. C4S has several unique competitive advantages that makes C4S interesting for SELAMAT and for future clients. C4S has developed two unique databases:
• The Food Safety Portal. This portal provides a comprehensive gateway to multiple resources of high relevance to food safety that will enable global research and policy communities, as well as other groups to find up-to-date information on food safety organizations, research and training.
• Stakeholders Database. This database was designed to include all types of stakeholders worldwide involved in any areas of food safety. The public database aims to increase brokerage and future collaborations between parties with common interests. It allows searching stakeholders by name, area of expertise, job title, organization, type of organization and country.
In addition, C4S has conducted a systematic assessment of existing international activities in regard to food safety through a global Delphi survey. This information has been integrated into policy recommendations to support sustainable collaboration on food safety between EU and its main trading partners. Potential areas of collaboration and existing gaps in knowledge and training needs have been identified and forms an excellent basis to initiate new businesses.
Many of the partners of the network have long experience in international networks and have a mission of their own organizations to work globally. CIRAD, as the main French institute that supports the French government in research for agriculture in the developing world, for instance has a worldwide network of contacts with knowledge on agriculture, food production and food safety
Many of the partners also belong to the SELAMAT network which gave them experience in working together in a network, which is a competitive advantage. Moreover, the SELAMAT network could be used as a base for upgrading simultaneously with C4S. The SELAMAT network offers the following services:
• Information exchange on topics related to food production, food safety and food quality via workshops, flyers, lectures and publications.
• Training courses: electronic (distance learning tool) and hands-on training. The following examples of training courses that are available: Pesticides, Mycotoxins, Dioxins and PAHs, Acrylamide and Furans, Heavy metals, Microbiology and GMOs, Veterinary drugs, Exposure assessment, HACCP, and Traceability & Emerging risk.
• Global Food Safety Legislation Portal and help desk for advice on methods and legislation, a unique consultation point.
• Initiate joint activities including joint research projects (several EU funded projects / proposals with SELAMAT partners have been prepared).
• Support to members in participation of projects in EU framework programs.
The results of WP3 have been presented in a management meeting of SELAMAT and the SELAMAT members agreed to start the process of integrating C4S services and products into their portfolio. C4S members were also welcomed as SELAMAT partners. The SELAMAT consortium accepted the different forms of contribution to the consortium as proposed by Collab4Safety but it will be decided case by case (for each new partner and their contribution) under which conditions a new organisation may become a SELAMAT member.
The overall objective of WP4 was to develop and implement a food safety road map that would facilitate a sustainable global cooperation on food safety. WP4 consisted of four tasks: organizing stakeholder workshop for refining policy translation and developing an outline for a road map for future implementation (task 4.1) developing that Food Safety Road Map (task 4.2) organizing an Outreach and Policy Conference Event to disseminate the conclusions and recommendations of the Delphi survey (task 4.3) and finally the publication of a policy white paper.
Task 4.1 encompassed organizing a stakeholder workshop in order to share the interim conclusions and recommendations of the Delphi survey (performed in WP1) with key international and European stakeholders. Originally the workshop was planned to take place in month 38. However, in order to utilize the opportunity to present at the Milan Expo 2015 event this was brought forward to month 34. Materials for, and moderation of the workshop was the responsibility of UNEW supported by project coordinators DLO-RIKLT and partners SPI.
The workshop was moderated by the project coordinator Dr Hans Marvin to ensure transparency, impartiality, focus, fair involvement, good timing, and the maintenance of a neutral atmosphere during the workshop. The workshop schedule began with a short welcome address from the EU scientific officer (Dirk Pottier) and the moderator. This was intentionally brief as its purpose was to welcome and thank participants for their attendance, provide them with a short introduction to the collab4safety project and the scope of the workshop, provide housekeeping information and briefly outline the schedule for the afternoon. The moderator then introduced the first plenary speaker Professor Lynn Frewer (UNEW, WP1 leader) who provided a detailed summary of the preliminary findings of the Delphi survey conducted as part of WP1. Following the plenary presentations from the invited speakers, an interactive discussion session was moderated by Professor Lynn Frewer and Dr Helen Kendall (UNEW). The aim of the session was to explore the emergent research and policy needs associated with emerging food risks. The discussion was designed to be participatory based on 11 different questions and was supported by an interactive audience participation support tool TurningPoint. In total 17 person participated in this interactive session.
Across the audience there was unanimous agreement that inter-disciplinary research was essential in order to address existing and emerging food safety risks. 100% of the sample agree/strongly with this statement. 86.67% of the audience agreed that inter-governmental organisations such as the FAO have a key role to play helping countries to collaborate in the area of food safety.
The objective of task 4.2: Provision and Presentation of a Food Safety Road Map was to develop an outline for the implementation of the policy recommendations to take activities forward and maintain momentum developed in the Collab4Safety project. The policy recommendations included in the policy paper were developed taking into account the feedback received by stakeholders in the Delphi surveys and the various workshops organized during the project. These recommendations and the implementation plan were also discussed with MEPs and relevant stakeholders from the European Commission in interviews conducted by SPI.
A first draft of the road map was presented in the Collab4Safety final event in Montpellier for discussion. SPI also conducted interviews with several experts on food safety to collect feedback on the policy recommendations and the implementation plan developed in the road map. SPI send out information on the project beforehand as beneficial. Prior to the interview (conducted virtually and face-to-face) the experts received a draft of the policy recommendations to allow a more focused discussion. A list of these experts can be found in table 1 (attached pdf).
The interviews started with a brief presentation of the Collab4Safety project: objectives, partners, results of the main outputs – Stakeholder Database and Food Safety Portal.
After this introduction, each one of the recommendations was discussed with the experts: they commented on the recommendations and also provided also feedback on the implementation plan.
Below is a list of the recommendations discussed:
1. National food safety policies need be a high priority for governments. If food safety problems are effectively being mitigated, resources are still required to mitigate potential emerging food safety risks. Policy “complacency” may be problematic and lead to difficulties in managing an unanticipated food safety crisis should one occur. Due account should be taken of regional or international standards, such as Codex Alimentarius, IPPC and OIE when developing national policies, although this does not exclude the possibility of applying different national standards under specific circumstances (for example, where there is a very low risk to health associate with a specific food risk, and where economic consequences of not allowing the product onto local markets would be very negative. Epidemiological surveillance of food-borne diseases is an important research priority.
2. It is important to consider existing and emerging food safety risks as part of any policy portfolio focused on food security, which also requires adoption of a systems approach.
3. Research funding and future research agendas must reflect this evidence requirement.
4. Uncertainties should be communicated to policy-makers with interests in food safety and food security to enable identification of existing knowledge gaps, and facilitate the best use of resources in emerging research agendas.
5. Developing food safety risk mitigation policies together with industry stakeholders is important. Public-private partnerships may facilitate the “co-production” of effective food safety policies.
6. Coordination of food safety activities at a national level should include all relevant stakeholders including ministries of health, agriculture, trade/industry, fisheries, tourism and others, as appropriate.
7. Information networks on food safety issues should work to build confidence among consumers and the media.
8. Training/education in food safety should be on-going and focused on government officials, industry leaders and consumers. Consumer awareness raising to encourage consumers to be quality and safety conscious.
9. A standard step in policy development should be an analysis of whether there are gaps in existing data, whether expert elicitation should be applied, and how expert uncertainties should be incorporated into the resulting policy portfolio.
10. The balance between supply, cost and environmental impact requires careful consideration to meet the challenge of provision of safe, nutritious food, while maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services. This needs to be formally addressed in policy development associated with food risks, which cannot be isolated from other food security issues.
11. Regional or international curation of a range of policy options may facilitate rapid response under urgent circumstances following the occurrence of chronic of acute food safety incidences. Food safety policies must be able to respond to a range of future food safety system shocks. A portfolio of policy responses is required to ensure rapid responses can be activated in response to emerging food safety emergencies. It may be most practical for these to be curated by international or regional food security agencies given the requirement for coherent food security, as opposed to food safety, policies.
12. Increased investment in capacity building in LMICs to enable effective assessment, mitigation of, and communication about, food safety issues is required. Careful assessment of local requirements in this regard will ensure the most efficient allocation of resources.
In general, the feedback received was very positive with the experts highlighting some specific aspects that were then addressed in the road map. These aspects focused the importance of the linkage between social sciences and humanities and natural sciences, the importance of consumer education, the necessity of translating EU expertise to guide developing countries in the development and implementation of food safety policies. More information on the implementation plan is included in the road map (D4.2)
The final version of the road map will be sent to all stakeholders and disseminated in the project’s communication channels (website, Twitter and LinkedIn). It will also be sent to all experts who participated in the interviews. SPI, as responsible for the road map, will ensure that it is also distributed to MEP and relevant industry members at the national, international and EU level. In addition, it will also organise a webinar to present the policy recommendations. This webinar will be live-streamed and made available in the project’s website which will still be online after the end of the project.
The objective of task 4.3: Organisation of an Outreach and Policy Conference Event was to disseminate the conclusions and recommendations of the Delphi survey, (ii) discuss the specific policy recommendations from the project, (iii) discuss and define the implementation plan of those recommendations (i.e. a starting point for the implementation of the Food Safety Road Map); present the Global Food Safety Legislation Platform, Global Food Safety Research Platform and Global Food Safety Training Platform developed in WP2 and future steps to take the activities of the project forward.
To this end a workshop was organised in June 2016 (M47) in Montpellier, France and was hosted by partner CIRAD. This workshop was linked to another event organised by SELAMAT on the same location to increase the output of the C4S workshop. Materials for, and moderation of, the workshop was the responsibility of RIKILT and CIRAD - supported by project partner SPI. The workshop was advertised by SPI through Twitter, the Collab4Safety website and several special mailing using the Collab4Safety expert database. In addition, CIRAD announced the workshop in their network in Africa and DLO-RIKILT within their SELAMAT network. Both the SELAMAT and the C4S workshops were broadcasted on the web and could be followed live. In several mailings and other advertise activities the workshop programme and that this event will be live broadcasted was announced prior to the event.
Workshop (outreach and policy event)
The workshop was briefly structured as follows: the first half day of the workshop was intended to introduce Collab4Safety to the participants and to present the main outcomes of the project, being the results of the global Delphi survey (presented by prof. Lynn Frewer) and an implementation plan of the policy recommendations of food safety collaboration (presented by Dr. Douglas Thompson). The afternoon session of the first day was devoted to international activities on food safety collaboration and emerging risks. Dr. Tobin Robinson presented the activities and views on emerging food safety risks of EFSA, Dr. Luis Vivas-Alegre introduced the EU Horizon 2020 programme and highlighted the possibilities of organisations outside Europe, in particularly Africa to engage, Dr. Masami Takeuchi presented the FAO point of view on international collaboration of food safety, and finally Mr. Brian Milton presented the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP). The programme on the second day (July 1st) was focussed on the engagement with Africa on food safety. Dr. Roderick Kwabena Daddey-Adjei (Ghana) presented a summary of the priorities of food safety in Africa presented in the SELAMAT workshop on 30th of June. Dr. Montet presented the results of a successful implementation of a national food safety system in the Ivory Coast. This was followed by an interactive discussion to explore issues of comment interest and to answer questions from the audience (including those linked via the web). In addition each presentation was followed by questions from the audience.
In total 65 participants attended on June 30th and 51 on July 1st. In addition, 12 experts from Africa registered for the live taping of the workshop. The participants came from all over the world but the majority from European countries. The majority were scientists from academia.
An important objective of the workshop was to discuss the food safety perspective of Africa. To this end the four lectures on food safety perspective of Mauritius, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa were given in the SELAMAT workshop and summarised in the C4S workshop. This has stimulated the representatives at the workshop from these countries to prepare a document that presented their views in this regard . These authors emphasized the importance of international collaboration and capacity building to improve the food safety situation in Africa.
Policy White Paper
Based on all of the project’s research findings, a list of recommendations has been drawn up in D4.4: Policy White Paper. These research findings and respective recommendations are summarized below.
1. Research Finding. Food legislation is frequently outdated, inadequate and fragmented. New legislation needs to be based on the best scientific evidence available.
Policy recommendation. National food safety policies need be a high priority for governments.
2. Research finding: Specific drivers do not increase or decrease specific food safety risks. Rather each driver is associated with increasing or decreasing multiple food safety risks.
Policy recommendation: It is important to consider existing and emerging food safety risks as part of any policy portfolio focused on food security, which also requires adoption of a systems approach.
3. Research finding: Food Safety policies require a foundation of evidence which is able to simultaneously consider evidence originating in the social and natural science areas, and which can apply methodologies with capacity to simultaneously manage quantitative and qualitative data.
Policy recommendation: Research funding and future research agendas must reflect this evidence requirement.
4. Research finding: There is a need to incorporate expert uncertainties regarding the translation of available evidence into policy options.
Policy recommendation: Uncertainties1 should be communicated to policy-makers with interests in food safety and food security to enable identification of existing knowledge gaps, and facilitate the best use of resources in emerging research agendas.
5. Research Finding. The food industry also has capability (and indeed responsibility) to supply safe food. When appropriate, the food industry can provide resources and capacities for food safety and quality assurance monitoring.
Policy recommendation. Developing food safety risk mitigation policies together with industry stakeholders is important. Public-private partnerships may facilitate the “co-production” of effective food safety policies.
6. Research Finding. Effective food safety risk management is contingent on “buy-in” from a range of actors in the food web, including consumers.
Policy recommendations:
• Coordination of food safety activities at a national level should include all relevant stakeholders including ministries of health, agriculture, trade/industry, fisheries, tourism and others, as appropriate.
• Information networks on food safety issues should work to build confidence among consumers and the media.
• Training/education in food safety should be on-going and focused on government officials, industry leaders and consumers. Consumer awareness raising to encourage consumers to be quality and safety conscious.
7. Research finding: Expert uncertainty may vary geographically, potentially as a consequence of local capacity (for example in terms of capability to identify and metricize food risk) or in accordance with other factors.
Policy recommendation: A standard step in policy development should be an analysis of whether there are gaps in existing data, whether expert elicitation should be applied, and how expert uncertainties should be incorporated into the resulting policy portfolio.
8. Research finding: The experts prioritized the need for national and international food safety agencies to be established where this has not already been done.
Policy recommendation: The balance between supply, cost and environmental impact requires careful consideration to meet the challenge of provision of safe, nutritious food, while maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services. This needs to be formally addressed in policy development associated with food risks, which cannot be isolated from other food security issues.
9. Research finding: Given that the food system must be resilient to future shocks (whether these originate in the social or natural environment, and compromise safety or other aspects of food security), and that these system shocks are partly unpredictable in terms of their when and where they will occur, a portfolio policy response is needed.
Policy recommendation: Regional or international curation of a range of policy options may facilitate rapid response under urgent circumstances following the occurrence of chronic of acute food safety incidences.
10. Research finding: There is a need for further capacity building to improve risk assessment and methodological processes at the national level. At the same time, international requirements focus on increasing capacity to facilitate global harmonization of food safety policy.
Policy recommendation: Increased investment in capacity building in LMICs to enable effective assessment, mitigation of, and communication about, food safety issues is required. Careful assessment of local requirements in this regard will ensure the most efficient allocation of resources.
Potential Impact:
The overall objective of Collab4Safety is to optimise the integration of research and training in food safety between the EU and its trading partners in order to facilitate the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food risks, and to provide a sustainable platform for global integration of policy. To this end, Collab4safety developed a comprehensive stakeholders database with a global coverage. This database contains 1,630 experts from 123 countries. It provides a stakeholder list that was used to drive many elements in the project, including the Delphi analysis, and was also the basis of the development of coordination and dissemination activities throughout the project.
The Delphi exercise has been finished and the analysis provides, on a global level, consensus regarding gaps in international research, innovation and training activities and policies in the area of food safety. The main conclusions are as follows: International experts express the opinion that there are, in general, no major differences between the drivers of existing and emerging food safety risks within the timeframe of the next five years. Demographic change, economic driving forces, resource shortages and environmental driving forces were identified as the primary drivers of both existing and emerging food safety risks. Limited numbers of interactions were found between the key drivers of existing and emerging risk and specific food safety risks, indicating that existing and emerging food safety risks have the same drivers. Introducing policies that affect a single driver may have impacts on multiple food safety risks. A “systems” approach to identifying, managing and mitigating food safety risks may therefore represent a more useful policy tool. Attempting to manage or mitigate single risks at a single point in time, or within a limited geographical frame, potentially will have limited impacts on global food safety.
This research has also highlighted the risk of developing policies that may be founded on evidence associated with expert uncertainties. While experts considered the impact of certain drivers to be low, their level of certainty regarding their opinion was also low. This may reflect attitudinal ambivalence regarding the importance of specific drivers, or the fact that they considered the driver to be irrelevant. For these reasons, the metricisation of expert uncertainty in policy orientated decision-making models regarding food safety (and beyond) may be flawed. Policymakers should be mindful of expert uncertainty, and regard such expert uncertainty as indicative of gaps in knowledge. Finally, the identification of barriers to effective food safety mitigation and future research requirements suggested the need to develop policies which foster sustained international networks and mechanisms for effective data sharing between food safety stakeholders in expert communities globally. This will act to facilitate the international harmonisation of food safety standards globally rather than tolerate exceptions that has previously been advocated.
In addition, the portal on food safety that was developed in the first reporting period provides a comprehensive ordered overview on food safety that enables the global research and policy societies to find up-to-date information on policies (legislation), research and training. The results of the above described activities are integrated to result in policy recommendations to support sustainable collaboration on food safety between EU and its main trading partners. Furthermore they will support sharing best practices and sustainable collaboration.
Collab4safety will support the development of policies which facilitate European competiveness by helping to:
• Develop and maintain European advantage regarding innovation in food safety science.
• Optimise the commercialisation trajectory for European export markets.
• Maintain European consumer safety associated with imported foods and ingredients.
• Increase European competiveness through reducing the incidence of food recalls and implementation of other control measures, which, in turn, will improve consumer confidence in the European food supply.
Throughout the Collab4Safety Project’s lifetime, consortium members have systematically implemented dissemination activities and applied tools in order to communicate activities at a global scale, to defined target groups, and also with the view to exploit the project results.
As previously mentioned, the Food Safety Stakeholders Database was the basis of the project’s dissemination activities, which were directed to a large community working in the food safety field, including members from Food regulatory agencies, Policy makers, Food safety authorities/agencies, Industry, NGO, Academic/research organisations and Multinational/global organisations. The total population of the database is 1,630 experts, from 123 countries.
The project website, www.collab4Safety.eu was one of the main communication tools of the project. It contains information on the project, its objectives, activities, expected results, partners, contacts, all the project events, online stakeholder database, access to the Food Safety Portal, and a space for subscribing to the project mailing list. It was continuously updated with news, and its download area has all the project public documents, promotional materials and events presentations. This will promote project exploitation since stakeholders will be able to actually access the project deliverables available to the public and also other relevant documents. Until the end of August 2016, the website counted a total of 11,952 views, 82.63% of which were from new visitors.
The project is also present in social networks, used both to disseminate the project, its events and the achieved results. The Collab4Safety Twitter (@Collab4Safety) account has 249 followers and 148 tweets, whereas its LinkedIn group counts with 65 members.
Specific dissemination materials were developed in order to support all project activities and disseminate the project in external events and in other project meetings related with food safety. The materials include brochures, periodic newsletters, roll-ups, pocket guides, press releases published in several media sources, flyers, videos and a slide presentation. The project also produced a short 3-minute movie on the food safety governance in Europe and the importance of international cooperation on request of the EU scientific officer of Collab4Safety. This video was shown in the EU pavilion during the Milan EXPO in the first week of May 2015 period (until October), and the total view count on Youtube as of August 2016 is 1186 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T_iOXuIOBs).
Throughout the project, the Collab4Safety partners participated in external international and local conferences/meetings, at which they disseminated and raised awareness around the project findings. These included, for instance, oral presentations at the School for Advanced Residue Analysis in Food (SARAF), the Safefood Biotoxins Annual Conference and the 6th China Beijing International Food Safety Forum, distribution of brochures at the Inprofood project workshop in Porto, Portugal, the 17th National Encounter Analytical Chemistry (ENQA) and the International Conference on the future potential of EU-Russian science, technology and innovation cooperation, just to give a few examples. A more detailed list can be consulted in Section 4.2 of this document.
The consortium organized a series of Regional Events and Stakeholder Workshops that aimed not only at disseminating the project, but also to discuss both regional and global issues related to food safety, as well as the development of the Food Safety Portal or of the Delphi study. All the events featured local and international speakers, and participants were mostly representatives of national agencies, members of international organizations, policy makers, industry and nongovernmental organizations members. In total, over 450 stakeholders attended the project events (see table 2 in attached pdf).
Project partners also established synergies with various relevant initiatives and institutions. These collaborations consists of joining efforts in terms of dissemination activities, most specifically using each other’s communication tools and channels (newsletters, events, websites, network of contacts, etc.) to disseminate activities of these initiatives. Some of these initiatives and institutions include SELAMAT - a network on Safety enhancement of Edible products, Legislation, Analysis and Management, with AAA countries, by mutual Training & research, the Global Food Safety Partnership (World Bank) - Public-private initiative dedicated to improving the safety of food in middle income and developing countries, and CACAARI - the Central Asia and the Caucasus Association of Agricultural Research Institutions.
The results of the analysis on the costs and benefits of creating a sustainable structure and the business plan were discussed within the C4S consortium and a proposal was made for the SELAMAT consortium. The objective of the sustainable coordination structure as foreseen by the Collab4Safety (C4S) consortium was to stimulate exchange of food safety information about research findings, capacity building and policies and to support the control and mitigation of existing and emerging food safety risks. This sustainable network structure will contribute to the development of trust between key players and institutions, which is needed to create an international forum for exchange of information and opinions on matters pertaining to food safety in the food and feed chains.
Because of the success of SELAMAT (www.selamat.net) and possibility to be taken up by this organisation in the future, it has been decided to implement a similar legal structure. SELAMAT aims to develop into a global coverage and C4S may provide that. C4S has several unique competitive advantages that makes C4S interesting for SELAMAT and for future clients.
Many of the partners of the network have long experience in international networks and have a mission of their own organizations to work globally. CIRAD, as the main French institute that supports the French government in research for agriculture in the developing world, for instance has a worldwide network of contacts with knowledge on agriculture, food production and food safety
The results of WP3 have been presented in a management meeting of SELAMAT and the SELAMAT members agreed to start the process of integrating C4S services and products into their portfolio. C4S members were also welcomed as SELAMAT partners. The SELAMAT consortium accepted the different forms of contribution to the consortium as proposed by Collab4Safety but it will be decided case by case (for each new partner and their contribution) under which conditions a new organisation may become a SELAMAT member.
The Food Safety Roadmap and the Policy white paper, mentioned in previous sections, are main project outcomes that will be extensively used and exploited beyond the lifetime of the project. Their purpose is to support collaboration and coordination of food safety research, training and policies on global dimensions, and also to ensure that existing institutions dealing with food safety will adopt/ use the methods and products developed. In particular, the Policy white paper on food safety will integrate the projects results, resulting in policy recommendations to support sustainable collaboration on food safety between EU and its main trading partners. This Policy White Paper has been submitted to, and discussed with, representatives of the European Commission and members of the European Parliament working in the area of food safety to draw support for the policy recommendations given in that document. These policy recommendations could, for instance, be used for the European food safety legislative agenda or future research calls in Horizon2020. The same is true for national research programmes of European countries, as well as third countries (China, Brazil, Russia, South-East Asia, etc.) due to the dissemination opportunities offered by the merger with the SELEMAT network.
List of Websites:
Project website: www.collab4safety.eu
Register in the Stakeholder Database: www.collab4safety.eu/access_database
Subscribe to mailing list: www.collab4safety.eu/mailing-list
Coordinator and secretary: Dr. Hans J.P. Marvin (coordinator)
RIKILT - Institute of Food Safety
E-mail: hans.marvin@wur.nl
Tel. +31 317 480342
Mr. Piet Stouten (secretary)
RIKILT - Institute of Food Safety
E-mail: piet.stouten@wur.nl
Tel. +31 317 480429
Furthermore, project logo, diagrams or photographs illustrating and promoting the work of the project (including videos, etc...) as well as the list of all beneficiaries with the corresponding contact names can be submitted without any restriction.
