FOODSEG in Europe – ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

In recent years, something special to complement and enhance Europe’s food safety and quality initiatives has been FOODSEG, which its principals call a coordination and support action. Consisting of a network of some 34 organizations representing 17 countries, all working in the field of food safety and quality along the entire feed-food chain, FOODSEG is a platform to pave the way for cooperations, new research, and innovation projects, according to Andreas Moser, FOODSEG’s spokesperson.

“FOODSEG has the overall objective to disseminate state-of-the-art research results in food safety and quality topics through a series of symposia, expert working group meetings, an online platform with best practice examples, coordination of cooperation, and a plan for the preparation of future activities,” Moser elaborates. “In FOODSEG we use activities like symposia, workshops, the Internet, etc., to bring stakeholder experts together.”

Established May 1, 2011 by Austria-based RTD Services (RTDS), a private company that specializes in management of research and technological development (RTD) and innovation projects, training of researchers, and dissemination and exploitation of research results, FOODSEG is the brain child of Moser, a credentialed food and biotechnology project manager who is co-founder and managing director of RTDS.

“RTDS serves universities and research institutes, industry, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and public authorities in all phases of their RTD and innovation projects,” Moser explains. “Most of our projects receive national and/or international funding, typically from the European Research Area, a component of the European Commission’s Research and Innovation initiative.”

Moser explains that FOODSEG pursues a series of strategic and measurable priorities in order to support research activities carried out in the field of safety for food. FOODSEG put forth at its beginning the key objectives.

1.) Establish expert working groups to coordinate research activities and to support policy development at the EU level and to contribute by identifying research agendas for future community research in the field of food safety and quality, along the whole food chain.

2.) Support the European Commission (EC) in formulating suggestions for political consequences and relevant research topics. The expert working groups elaborate policy recommendations to the EC relative to food, consumers, research, health, and agriculture, and make suggestions for relevant research topics.

3.) Cooperate with and contribute to the following technology platforms, especially those which have food safety as part of their Strategic Research Agenda: Food for Life; Plants for the Future; Global Animal Health; Farm Animal Breeding and Reproduction; Water Supply and Sanitation.

4.) Organize annual symposia.

5.) Integrate experts from EU New Member States and associated countries (meaning countries having association agreements with Horizon 2020).

6.) Disseminate research results through an online database platform and establish new project consortia.

7.) Initiate and set up a researchers exchange program.

Funding

FOODSEG was originally funded by the EC’s 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technology, and Demonstration (FP7), which was previously Europe’s biggest research funding program. The FP7 grant purse for FOODSEG was € 999.915 ($1,138.77)

The FP7 closed at the end of 2013, and its replacement program, called Horizon 2020, has been running since January 2014, Moser notes.

“We try to motivate the experts to now apply for European funding within the Horizon 2020 program and disseminate their findings of current or completed EU research projects,” Moser says. “For FOODSEG, the FP7 funding period ended April 30, 2014, but we are continuing on with a network approach where the person/expert is a member and pays a small annual fee of

€150 ($170.21). With that, members are able to participate for free in our annual symposium and workshops.”

According to Moser, the main FOODSEG organized activity is the annual FOODSEG Symposium, which will be held April 23-24 in Rome, Italy this year.

“The symposium also includes a brokerage event where the experts have the opportunity to meet and briefly discuss topics of mutual interest within bilateral meetings,” Moser adds. Moser says a brokerage event is a fast-paced icebreaker gathering where potential cooperation partners can chat during 30-minute meet and greet sessions according to pre-defined qualifications.