JRC and EFSA renew collaboration

On 26 June 2018, Vladimír Šucha, Director General, Joint Research Centre (JRC), and Bernhard Url, Executive Director, European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), renewed their collaboration agreement.

Its objective is to continue and to strengthen the cooperation in the fields of food and feed safety, animal health and welfare, plant health and nutrition.

Both institutions will put emphasis on exchange and joint activities in the areas of

• sectorial food and feed legislation (e.g. GMOs, feed additives, or pesticides);
• alternative methods to protect animals;
• combined exposure of chemicals and chemical mixture; and
• collection and use of landscape and environmental data to be used for risk assessment.

JRC – EFSA relations

EFSA is an executive agency providing scientific advice on existing and emerging risks related to the food and feed chain. The JRC and EFSA have longstanding collaboration since EFSA's establishment in 2002.

The work of EFSA and the JRC is complementary, i.e. EFSA provides scientific opinions related to risk assessment of food and feed, whereas the JRC delivers underpinning advice, reports and studies to support EU food and feed policy.

Some examples of the collaboration include:

• EFSA-ECHA guidance for the identification of endocrine disruptors in the context of biocidal products regulation and the placing of plant protection products on the market, to which JRC contributed with its expertise on in vitro and in silico mechanistic data.
• IPChem Database, run by the JRC is supported by EFSA

Both institutions work also hand in hand on the safety of food contact materials (FCM).

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.

JRC and EFSA have also complementary roles in the authorisation process of GMOs and feed additives.

When applicants submit their dossiers to the Commission, EFSA takes care of the risk assessment; the JRC evaluates the performance of analytical methods for analysis in the food and feed chain. The JRC work includes also GMO reference materials.