Science for Health

Maintaining the highest possible health status of European citizens is necessary to maximise the European Union’s full economic and social potential. While the main responsibility for health policy and provision of healthcare lies with the Member States, certain aspects of public health, such as aggregation of data and supporting harmonisation can be addressed most efficiently at the EU level.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC), as the European Commission’s in-house science service, has a has a longstanding experience on health-related activities. These range from the detection of potentially hazardous substances in food, to the monitoring of health threats and environmental risks, as well as standardisation of measurements and validation of methods for safety assessment. The JRC is also now successfully developing new expertise in important public health-related areas, such as cancer and rare diseases, nutrition and healthy ageing, as well as behavioural sciences applied to public health.