Stykkisholmur, Iceland, June 19th 2008:

has now launched its second transnational call on food safety issues

On Friday January the 11th there was a meeting about MRSA and antibiotic resistance in the Netherlands. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality organised the meeting for several interested SAFEFOODERA participants. Italy, France, Germany, England, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands were represented.

The meeting resulted with eleven topics for promising joint activities. The following step will be prioritization and clustering of the topics.
Looking back we think we had a successful meeting and we look forward for further cooperation.

Organizers,

Jan Lambers and Mirjam Snijdelaar

The 5th SAFEFOODERA European Steering Committee (ESC) meeting was held 27-28 September 2007 in Bilbao, Basque Country. The main topic discussed was the sustainability of SAFEFOODERA, including:

The meeting was prolonged with a fantastic roundtrip to Rioja Alavesa and the wonderful city of San Sebastian, guided by Monica de Prado.

The last SAFEFOODERA ESC-meeting will be in Reykjavik, Iceland, in June 2008

An extraordinary PMG-meeting was held in Reykjavik, Iceland 18 - 19 April 2007 to discuss a strategy for bringing SAFEOODERA from a project to a sustainable organisation by:

1. Examining the feasibility of establishing a global system of food safety research hubs.
2. Investigate the potential to use these hubs as an aid to developing a globally facing research program to address transnational food safety priorities in Europe.
3. Deepening the research platform (being established in Safefoodera) to proactively describe new or re-emerging chemical and/or microbial risks from farm to fork and fish to dish.
4. Ensure that there is linkage to other relevant European and non-European food safety research initiatives with regard to the planning of future transnational research.
5. Maximise the opportunity for creating added value at national level by developing further transnational calls, including the processes for identifying the priority topics and the management of the calls.

The fifth and final SAFEFOODERA stakeholder meeting was successfully completed at Bundesinstitute fuer Risikobewertung (BfR) in Berlin on 30 March with a group representing EFSA, European Commission, Scientists, Food service sector and Consumers.

The group discussed: Can SAFEFOODERA be developed into a sustainable platform for funding and managing transnational research that delivers knowledge and capabilities aimed at protecting consumers against health risks from the consumptions of foods?

A report from the meeting will soon be available on the SAFEFOODERA website.

The Open Space technique was tested at a workshop in Berlin on 28 March 2007 aimed at planning the key SAFEFOODERA event for developing the next transnational call in Paris on 12 – 14 June 2007.

The title of the event was developed and agreed to be:
· Bring your national/regional food safety research priorities
· Identify topics and potential partners to develop a transnational call

The 2nd International SAFEFOODERA meeting on network expansion was successfully completed in Zagreb, Croatia 22-23 March 2007. The main topics discussed were: "Information exchange through Joint activities".

In addition to old SAFEFOODERA members the participants were new members and interested parties from Croatia, Irland, Brazil, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovak Republic and Czech Pepublic.

You may download the participants list:

The fourth of the five planned SAFEFOODERA stakeholder meetings was successfully completed in Brussels on 15 March with a group representing the European consumers. You may download the presentations used as stimuli‘s to discuss:

1. Options for co-operative initiatives on the advancement of food safety in the EU and world wide.
2. Interaction about food safety initiatives and desired areas for further research and development, between consumer groups and the national governments’ representatives responsible for food safety research.

A report from the meeting will soon be available on the SAFEFOODERA website.

The third of the five planned SAFEFOODERA stakeholder meetings was successfully completed in Ljubljana on 9 February with a group representing the European food service sector. You may download the presentations used as stimuli‘s to discuss:
1. Options for co-operative initiatives on the advancement of food safety in the EU and world wide.
2. Interaction about food safety initiatives and desired areas for further research and development, between hospitality, food service and retail sectors and the national governments’ representatives responsible for food safety research.
3. What is the optimal Research Infrastructure from the invited stakeholders point of view, to improve food safety research and to deliver effective education and training?".
A report from the meeting will soon be available on the SAFEFOODERA website.

A workshop aiming at establishing a food safety research ideas forum for Programme Managers was successfully completed at the Gustav Stresemann Institute (GSI) in Bonn on 31 October. A great deal of progress was made during the workshop.

The enclosed presentations were used as stimuli‘s for discussion, before approximately 30 European and other international Programme Managers discussed the feasibility through 3 different workshops; "1. Defining a successful ideas forum", "2. Identifying the constraints and barriers to setting up an ideas forum" and "3. Developing a road-map to a ideas forum".

The final report from the workshop may be downloaded.

The coming PMG-meeting on January 12th 2007 will review the ongoing activities with special focus on "Pilot call", "Network expansion" and "Stakeholder meetings". The yearly report to the Commission and the next ESC meeting in Bilbao in September 2007 will also be discussed.

You may download the Agenda for the PMG-meeting in Copenhagen

Network Expansion Assistant Sabine Bonneck visited the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) for identifying potential US-partners to join SAFEFOOD-ERA. Sabine met Dr. Robert Buchanan, Director, Office of Science at the FDA, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Maryland. Beside this she got together with Deputy Administrator Dr. Joseph Spence at ARS in Beltsville, Maryland and Dr. John Luchansky, Research Leader, Microbial Food Safety Research Unit at ARS in Wyndmoor, PA. All dialogue partners were interested in learning facts about SAFEFOODERA and ideas how to improve the coordination of research activities between the United States and Europe. Both agencies are very much involved in food safety research in the United States. While the FDA belongs to the business area of the US Department of Health and Human Services the ARS is subordinated to the US Department of Agriculture.

With Sabine’s visit the first step is done to win the USA as a strategic partner to further expand the SAFEFOODERA network. Since Brazil will join SAFEFOODERA soon the network would then be perfectly linked to the major players in the field of food safety on the American continent.

The second of the five planned SAFEFOODERA stakeholder meetings was successfully completed in Copenhagen on
15 December with a group representing the European food and drink industry (CIAA). You may download the presentations used as stimuli‘s for discussion before the stakeholder group of 21 industry and SAFEFOODERA members discussed "What is the optimal Research Infrastructure in Emerging Risks from industry/ funders point of view, to improve food safety research and to deliver effective education and training".
A report from the meeting will soon be available on the SAFEFOODERA website.

A national contact meeting with stakeholders from the Polish authorities and scientific community was successfully completed in Warsaw on 7 December.

The report from the meeting will soon be available on the SAFEFOODERA website.

The first of five planned SAFEFOODERA stakeholder meetings was successfully completed in Lisbon on 24 November with a group representing the European scientific community.
The next meeting will be with the Food Industry, followed by meetings with the Retail and Food Service sectors, the Consumers and finally with the Commission/EFSA in March 2007.
You may download the presentations used as stimuli‘s for discussion before the stakeholder group of 22 scientists and SAFEFOODERA members discussed "The optimal Research Infrastructure from scientists/funders point of view to improve food safety research", and "The optimal infrastructure that delivers effective education and training in food safety from scientists/funders point of view".

The report from the workshops that will be presented for the EU Commission may also be downloaded.

SAFEFOODERA invites applicants, such as researchers and research institutions, industry, industry organisations and authorities to submit project proposals with a deadline of 15th December 2006.

Please find the interactive tool for the application form at www.safefoodera.net/application

APPLICANT SEARCHERS SERVICE
Finding consortium partners in its own country/region can be a difficult task, but going abroad is even more challenging! SAFEFOODERA try to help you through our website by having a list of searchers in a simple way.

Aims of the workshop is to investigate the feasibility of setting up a network, via which the public funders could share information on strategies and developing priorities for research so that prospective partners could express an interest in joint working at a stage when ideas were forming rather than when they were ready to launch - this would allow time for discussion between partners at an early stage which may make it easier to agree on joint needs.
Date: 30 – 31 October 2006, (commencing lunchtime on 30 October)
Location: Gustav Stresemann Institute, Bonn, Germany

The 1st joint SAFEFOODERA ESC and Experts meeting was held 28 - 29 September 2006 in The Hague, The Netherlands. The main topics discussed were "Launching of the pilot call" and "Network expansion". One of the conclusions of the meeting was to invite Irland, Latvia, Lituania, Croatia and Brazil to join the Safefoodera network. The Safefoodera Pilot Call was officially launched during the meeting.

15 June 2006, Brussels

The workshop was jointly organised by Directorates E and B in order to bring together all coordinators of on-going ERA-Net projects in the field of food, agriculture and biotechnology.

You are invited to participate in the next European Steering Committee in den Hague the 28th-29th September 2006. Please register as soon as possible.

The 20 June 2006 in Brussels a joint workshop about ERA-NET expierience has been held. EuroHORC and EC was responsible for the meeting.

Presentations given by invited speakers and workshop results may be downloaded:

The 23 may 2006 in Brussels a workshop "ERA-NET as a tool for facilitating Cooperation and Coordination between Ministries managing RTD Programmes" has been. The European Commission was responsible for the meeting.

Presentations given by invited speakers and workshop results may be downloaded:

The 3rd SAFEFOODERA European Steering Committee (ESC) meeting was held 9-10 February 2006 in Cyprus. The main topic discussed was "Preparation for a pilot call".
Main decisions about:

The 1st International SAFEFOODERA meeting on network expansion was successfully completed on January 10th 2006 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The main topics discussed were: "Preferred models for cooperation".

Presentations given by invited speakers and workshop results may be downloaded:

The PMG meeting in Copenhagen on 14 October 2005 agreed to establish four working groups to help develop proposals for the launch and running of a pilot call(s), and one working group for the expansion of SAFEFOODERA. Two types of pilot call have been proposed with a launch in October 2006 - one with a common pot and one with a distributed pot in order to be able to compare and contrast the models for future use. On the basis of the outputs of the working groups, the ESC meeting of February 2006 in Cyprus will take decisions on both the scientific content of the pilot call(s) as well as coming to agreement on the process to be followed.

You may follow the activities in the working groups on SAFEFOODERA -extranet (MYWORK-WP3 Strategic activities and WP6 External communication).

Marta Sabec has replaced Livija Tusar as the representative of the Ministry of high education, science and technology, Slovenia (MESS) in the SAFEFOODERA project.

Marta Sabec has a B.Sc. in Agronomy and a M. Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Ljubljana. She has experience in development work and environmental microbiology from the food industry, before moving to the Universita di Udine, Italy to work on isolation, identification and preservation of plant and food pathogenic bacteria and fungi, including isolation and characterization of aerobic heterotrophic bacterial strains from the Gulf of Trieste. Returning to Slovenia she joined the Agricultural institute of Slovenia, Plant protection department, in Ljubljana as an assistant in bacterial plant diseases and as the National coordinator of surveillance on some quarantine and non-quarantine bacterial plant diseases, diagnostic laboratory and field research work. In 2005 she moved to her present position at the Ministry of high education, science and technology, Ljubljana, Office for international and EU affairs.

Nordic Innovation Centre (NICe), the project coordinator of SAFEFOODERA, invite you to take an active part in a two-day seminar with presentations and workshops on "Food Safety in a European Perspective". An important part of the seminar is the presentation of four new research projects on Food Safety, launched by NICe in 2004, within the research area of Campylopbacter, Process induced risk, Traceability and Risk analysis in food safety. These ongoing projects will form the foundation for workshops and discussions during the seminar. Further information regarding programme, registration and accomodation may be downloaded from:
http://www.nordicinnovation.net/_img/nise_brosjyre_konferanse3.pdf

Dr.ir. Tibbe Breimer has replaced Jos A. Cornelese as the representative of The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, The Netherlands (LNV) in the SAFEFOODERA project.

Tibbe Breimer has a Ph. D. degree in Agricultural Sciences, University of Wageningen, 1982. He is presently senior scientific officer/staff adviser for research on agricultural production, plant protection, manure and minerals, organic agriculture and glasshouse production. He is also responsible for the coordination of the annual planning process for research at the DLO-institutes within Wageningen University and Research Centre.

Jos A. Cornelese will, from his new position at The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA), continue to influence the SAFEFOODERA project by working together with our Topic Coordinator Hubert Noteborn.

The SAFEFOODERA 1st year status activity report was submitted to the Commission on September 30th. The report has been approved, and you may download the Executive Summary.

The coming PMG-meeting on October 14th 2005 will review the ongoing activities and establish working groups involving all participants to initiate the workpackage "Joint activities". The main topics to be discussed in Copenhagen will be the workpackages "Strategic Activities", "Joint activities" and the expansion of SAFEFOODERA.

You may download the Agenda for the PMG-meeting in Copenhagen

The 2nd International SAFEFOODERA Conference and European Steering Committee (ESC) meeting was successfully completed September 2nd 2005 in Bergen, Norway. The main topics discussed were: "From Information Exchange to Strategic Activities".

Presentations given by invited speakers may be downloaded:

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Geoffrey Podger, Director of European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), will present and discuss the present and future role of EFSA at the SAFEFOODERA conference in Bergen 1-2 September 2005.
The Programme and the initial Workshop groups may be downloaded:

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Norbert Hirschauer from Humboldt-Universität Berlin will present his research activities about the application of Game Theory to the identification of foodborne Emerging Risks at the SAFEFOODERA conference in Bergen 1-2 September 2005. The abstract may be downloaded:

The SAFEConsortium has modernised its web-site through a Finnish-UK co-operative product. A preannouncement of the first SAFEConsortium International Congress to be held in Budapest in June 2006 may be found on the web site www.safeconsortium.org

We are pleased to announce that our SAFEFOODERA-NET contact point within the Commission, Mr. Giorgio Clarotti from Research Directorate B, will present "From ERA-NET Scheme to Art 169 or ERA-NET plus" at our conference in Bergen 1-2 September 2005.

The National Research Agency (ANR) www.gip-anr.fr held its first board meeting on 15 February 2005. ANR has the task of funding selected research projects, including food safety, according to criteria of excellence and best international practices. The budget for the agreed programme of activities for 2005 is 350 M€, with 700 M€ committed to multiple year projects.

The 2nd International SAFEFOODERA Conference and European Steering Committee (ESC) meeting is going to be held 1-2 September 2005 in Bergen, Norway. For more information about the conference city, please use the below link, www.bergen-guide.com.
The main topics to be discussed in the ESC meeting will be "From Information Exchange to Strategic Activities".

The 1st International Food and Nutrition Congress-Food Safety and Quality Through the Food Chain, is going to be held between June 15 and 18, 2005, in Istanbul, Turkey. For more information on the conference, please use the below link, www.tubitakcongress2005.org or contact: TUBITAK MRC, FI, P.O. Box: 21, 41470 Gebze, Kocaeli-TURKEY
Tel: +90-262-6412300/3531, 3500
Fax: +90-262-6412309

The SAFEFOODERA project will be presented at the conference.

Elika is organising a CONFERENCE ON FOOD RISK ASSESSMENT at Euskalduna Congress Centre in Bilbao on 5 April 2005. The Food and Agro-Fishery Research Directorate, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Basque Government (DAP) is representing the Basque Country in the SAFEFOODERA project, with Monica de Prado as their representative in the European Steering Committee.

The SAFEFOODERA project will be presented at the conference.

The comming PMG-meeting will take place at Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL) in Bonn, Germany on 14 - 15 March 2005. PMG will review the ongoing activities and continue to plan the next ESC meeting in Norway on 1 - 2 September 2005. The main topics to be discussed in Bonn will be "Information Exchange", the start-up of the workpackage "Strategic Activities", "External Communication" and the expansion of SAFEFOODERA.

You may download the Agenda for the PMG-meeting in Bonn

Carmelita Stoffels, our ERA-NET contact point within the Commission, take up a new post in Paris from 1st March 2005. Our new contact point within the ERA-NET team will be Mr. Giorgio Clarotti, who has many years of experience within the Commission.

The SAFEFOODERA team are very grateful for the excellent support we got from Carmelita during the startup of SAFEFOODERA, and we wish her the very best in her new post i Paris.

An application for expanding the SAFEFOODERA consortium with new national participants from Greece, Ireland, Austria and Spain was delivered in Brussels on March 1st at 0840 hours. The potential new participants are: Hellenic Food Safety Authority from Greece, Teagasc from Ireland, Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft from Austria and Ministry for Education and Science from Spain.

The first questionnaire to be completed in WP2 Information exchange is now available on the SAFEFOODERA-extranet. Members of ESC are expected to complete the form "WP2.2 Comparison and clustering of national/regional food safety research - Questionnaire No 1. - 04.02.05" within 11 March 2005. The results will be discussed at the next PMG-meeting in Germany on 14 - 15 March 2005.

Members of the EEAG will be drawn from the national or regional list of the ESC members. A provisional list of expert should be ready by March 15th 2005.

The ESC members should organising a list of Experts per country or region with experience in the area of food safety such as microbiology, food processing technology, chemistry and other crosscutting disciplines. It is required that the listed experts (or panel) will as far as possible include expertise on different food safety related subjects and have different backgrounds, such as governmental, industry, academia and NGOs.

If possible the experts should be selected among persons who are working as experts for EFSA or other international institutions, the Commission (DG Research, DG SANCO), or as national representatives of Codex.

You may download the updated Terms of Reference and Protocols for EEAG.

The PERIAPT final activity report has been submitted to the Commission. PROFORSAFE and PERIAPT established the SAFEFOODERA European platform of 21 participants from 15 Member States, 3 Associated Countries and 3 regional organisations representing 450 million European citizens. You may download The Final activity report and its appendixes from the right column.

The participant from Slovenia, Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (MESS) has changed the name. The new Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology was legally established on 21 December 2004. From 23 December we can also welcome Dr. Jan Mavri to the SAFEFOODERA team. He will work together with Livija on the Slovenian issues.

The PROFORSAFE final activity report was submitted to the Commission on November 15th. PROFORSAFE and PERIAPT established the SAFEFOODERA European platform of 21 participants from 15 Member States, 3 Associated Countries and 3 regional organisations representing 450 million European citizens. You may download The Final activity report and its appendixes from the right column.

The SAFEFOODERA-Extranet will soon be available for you through this homepage. You will be able to access the extranet by using your SAFEFOODERA ID and password, which will be forwarded to you in the middle of December. The information on the extranet will be limited to the SAFEFOODERA participants.

The Project Management Group (PMG) will meet in Helsinki, Finland on 9 - 10 December 2004 to review ongoing activities and to start planning of the next European Steering Committee (ESC) meeting. The main topics to be discussed in Helsinki will be "Information Exchange" and "European Expert Advisory Group (EEAG)".

The start up meeting of SAFEFOODERA was held in Kranskja Gora, Slovenia on 23-24 September 2004. The main purpose of the meeting was to initiate the European Steering Committee (ESC), the European Expert Advisory Group (EEAG), and to start building trust and mutual understanding between the participants.