On June 26, 2018, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) announced that they have renewed their collaboration agreement. The two institutions committed to working together “in a variety of scientific and technical areas related to food and feed safety, animal health and welfare, plant health and nutrition.”
EFSA and JRC’s exchange and joint activities will focus on i) “sectoral food and feed legislation,” ii) “alternative methods to protect animals,” iii) “combined exposure of chemicals and chemical mixtures,” and iv) “collection and use of landscape and environmental data for use in risk assessment.” The collaboration started in 2002 with EFSA’s establishment, the JRC informed. Examples of their cooperation include the guidance on the identification of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the fields of biocides and pesticides which was developed by EFSA and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) with support from the JRC and published in June 2018 (FPF reported).
The two organizations “work also hand in hand on the safety of food contact materials (FCM),” the JRC noted, whereas “EFSA is responsible for the safety assessment and the JRC, which runs the European Union Reference Laboratory for Food Contact Materials, is in charge of analytical methods performance, inter-laboratory comparisons, technology transfer, trainings and networking.”
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EFSA (June 26, 2018). “EFSA and Joint Research Centre renew cooperation agreement.”
JRC (June 26, 2018). “JRC and EFSA renew collaboration.”
IFT (June 28, 2018). “EFSA, Joint Research Center renew cooperation agreement.”
Chemical Watch (July 5, 2018). “EFSA and JRC sign deal to extend collaboration.“
