Participation of iBET in the Collab4Safety Project, funded by the European Union

The Collab4Safety project, submitted to the FP7-KBBE-2012-6 Call, has been granted approximately €1.2 million for 48 months. The project, which started in the 1^st of August of 2012, aims to contribute to an increased cooperation and coordination on food safety at a global level. This will be pursued by optimizing the integration of research and training in food safety between the European Union (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 food safety policies. Collab4Safety is coordinated by the Stichting Dienst Landbouwkunding Onderzoek (DLO-RIKILT; The Netherlands) and counts with the participation of The University of Newcastle upon Tyne - School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (UNEW; United Kingdom); Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD; France); Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (iBET; Portugal); Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI; Portugal); Institute of Biochemistry Russian Ac. Sci (INBI, Russia); Queen’s University Belfast (QUB; United Kingdom); Institute of Horticulture (IH; Poland); Institute of Plant Protection (IPP), from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS; China); and National Laboratory Agricultural de Minas Gerais, Ministry of Agriculture of Brazil (LANAGRO; Brazil). The iBET team, coordinated by Dr. Teresa Crespo is responsible, among other tasks, of ensuring the proper design and development of a sustainable coordination structure. Overall, it is expected that Collab4Safety will: · Increase overall confidence across the Member States in the EU food safety policy; · Increase public and stakeholder confidence in European food safety policy, including that of important EU trading partners; · Ensure harmonization of trading standards between Europe and third countries, such as the better global implementation of Directive 2002/657 on food safety testing. For further information on Collab4Safety, please visit https://web.spi.pt/collab4safety