A spokesperson for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) told us.
“The MYCHIF project was chosen for its innovative nature at EU level in terms of integrated methodologies for the risk assessment of mycotoxins in food and feed, which was one of the three thematic areas the submitted proposals had to refer to.”
The Authority said a total of 28 organizations from 15 European countries, grouped in six consortia, responded to a second thematic grant call that it launched in April 2016.
The EU risk assessor said the remainder of a €1m grant fund was spread across two other innovative research projects on methodology development in risk assessment.
Safety challenges
“EFSA, in its bid to constantly review existing risk assessment methods and develop new ones in key scientific areas related to its mission, relies on the cooperation of its partners in the member states.
“This grant scheme enables leading scientific institutions in member states to work as a collective, share knowledge and expertise, and contribute to meeting future challenges in the field of food safety, and this is exactly what the MYCHIF project does,” said the spokesperson.
With the grant secured, MYCHIF can now start working, she added.
“As indicated in their proposal, MYCHIF can start developing an integrated method for risk assessment and risk management, in particular applied to the (co-)occurrence of mycotoxins in food and feed.“
Upon completion of the project, the consortium has to provide EFSA with a final scientific report. That will be published on the Authority’s website.
The lead institution on the project is Italy’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Partners include Università degli studi di Parma, Queen’s University Belfast, Portugal, Universidade do Minho, Italy’s National Research Council and Istituto Superiore di Sanità, and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in France.