Main achievements and challenges of the EFSA Scientific Committee since its inception

In about ten years of activity, the Scientific Committee of EFSA has been successful in addressing a number of challenging areas of increasingly complex nature related to scientific and procedural aspects of risk assessment in the food and feed chain. The scientific outputs adopted so far by the Scientific Committee are summarised and assigned to the three main areas of responsibility that the Scientific Committee covers: (i) opinions dealing with innovative risk assessment methodologies; (ii) opinions aiming at ensuring transparency and improving quality of specific components of risk assessment; and (iii) opinions addressing risk assessment of specific multisectoral issues. The main future challenge for the Scientific Committee will be in assisting EFSA to implement its ‘Science Strategy’ for the years 2012-2016, a recently developed and highly sophisticated approach: (i) to further develop EFSA’s scientific excellence, and other core values, such as openness, transparency, independence and responsiveness; (ii) to optimise the use of European risk assessment capacity across the EU; (iii) to develop and harmonise methodologies and approaches to assess risks associated with the food/feed chain; and (iv) to strengthen the scientific basis for risk assessment and risk monitoring in the food/feed chain.