NP/EFSA/NIF/2025/01 - Training course in allergenicity risk assessment of innovative proteins in food and feed
Call reference: NP/EFSA/NIF/2025/01
Deadline to register interest: 27/01/2025
Background
Allergenicity risk assessment is facing a game-changing paradigm shift to keep up with the rapid pace of food innovation and biotechnology advances, in a world that demands more sustainable food systems and healthier food. Current strategies for allergenicity risk assessment of innovative proteins embedded into EFSA guidance documents build on Codex Alimentarius guidelines set forth in 2003. Continuous scientific advances over the last two decades call for urgent modernisation to ensure the fit-for-purpose of allergenicity risk assessment methodologies. Thus, there is a functional asynchrony between available safety standards and concurrent scientific developments that EFSA and other risk assessment bodies are mandated to mitigate as much as possible.
Prospectively, EFSA has devoted substantial resources to further advance allergenicity risk assessment, while advocating for stakeholder engagement. A series of EFSA procurements have been undertaken in such direction, which resulted in significant steps forward. Framed by a stakeholder workshop in 2021, EFSA also anticipated further research and regulatory/ technological developments to fill in the gaps and improve the allergenicity risk assessment of products derived from biotechnology and other food sources. EFSA is currently evaluating the usefulness of the allergenicity risk assessment approach overall, also considering in silico and in vitro testing.
Despite being still in its infancy, allergenicity risk assessment is a key cross-cutting area overarching all EFSA units dealing with proteins, including most regulated products. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the risk assessors to stay abreast of state-of-the-art developments in this field and implement relevant traits into the regulatory risk assessment. This training is also timely to raise awareness about updates of several EFSA guidance documents and scientific opinions, and stimulate discussions challenging current approaches.
Objectives
The objectives of the project are as follows:
- to prepare the curriculum for a training course on the state of the art and developmental needs in allergenicity risk assessment of innovative proteins in food and feed, which is tailored to the EFSA context and needs.
- to deliver the training course at EFSA’s premises, which will be targeted to scientific officers from relevant EFSA Units dealing with proteins and allergenicity assessment, and to provide post-training support to the course participants.
- to prepare a scientific article or comprehensive report summarising the experience and outcomes of the training course.
Selection criteria - Technical and professional capacity
The tenderer must have the technical and professional capacity to perform the contract in accordance with the tender specifications.
Requirement 1: Professional capacity (overall)
The tenderer must have extensive and demonstrable scientific expertise in the subject matter of the call, including training activities.
Requested evidence:
- A list of three major projects or publications related to the subject matter of the call, carried out in the course of the past 5 years.
- A list of three major training/educational activities related to the subject matter of the call, carried out in the course of the past 5 years.
Requirement 2: Professional capacity (team)
The tenderer must have the ability to provide a team of scientists compliant with the following minimum expertise requirements:
- Two scientists with at least 5 years of experience in allergenicity risk assessment, including training activities.
Requested evidence:
- Detailed CVs (max. 3 pages) of the project team members proposed for the assignment.
- One-page summary with the project team members and the covered profiles.
Requirement 3: Professional capacity (English language capacity)
The team members must have an excellent level of spoken and written English. For non-native speakers, this should be demonstrated by an official certificate of English proving a C1 level or at least 3 years of work or study in an English-speaking environment or by proof of (co)authorship of scientific publications and/or reports in English language.
Requested evidence:
- Detailed CVs (max. 3 pages) of the project team members proposed for the assignment.
- One-page summary with the project team members and indication of how the English requirement is met.
Requirement 4: Technical capacity (overall)
The tenderer must have the following minimum technical capacity to perform the contract:
- Access to software, server/computing capacity, etc., to perform relevant analysis, as per the curriculum for the training course.
Requested evidence:
- A signed statement confirming access to the above.
If you are interested in this procedure please send an email within the deadline to EFSAprocurement [at] efsa.europa.eu quoting the reference of the procedure and specifying the following:
- your name/organisation’s name and address;
- whether you participate as a physical person or an organisation/private company.