Development of a roadmap for action for the project More Welfare: towards new risk assessment methodologies and harmonised animal welfare data in the EU

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) strives to develop new methodologies (quantitative and qualitative) for assessing animal welfare of food‐producing animals by 2027 and start collecting standardised and good quality animal welfare (AW) data by 2030. In light of its vision, EFSA identified the need to develop an action Roadmap for the More Welfare project: towards new risk assessment methodologies and harmonised animal welfare data in the EU. This Roadmap maps existing animal welfare assessment methods, tools, and data collection activities for different species of food‐producing animals through literature review, desk research, online surveys, and workshops. It identifies data and knowledge gaps as well as challenges and blockers prevalent in AW assessment. In doing so, the roadmap points towards research areas that require further development (i.e., working areas), but also highlights collaboration opportunities and priority strategies (actions and project proposals) necessary for achieving EFSA's vision. Seven working areas for animal welfare assessment were identified and discussed with EFSA and external AW experts during virtual workshops, touching upon the definition of animal welfare, indicators and tools for welfare assessment, and the development of frameworks to assess and/or prioritise animal welfare issues. Finally, the Roadmap formulates five project proposals, each of them presenting high‐level recommendations on multi‐annual and multi‐partner projects that were identified in collaboration with EFSA and AW experts, each supported by a SWOT analysis.