ANSES renews its collaboration on food safety with the NIFDS, its counterpart in Korea
On 12 July, ANSES and the Republic of Korea’s National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation (NIFDS) signed a new five-year memorandum of understanding in the area of food-related risks, following an initial five-year collaboration.
In the Republic of Korea, the NIFDS is responsible for the scientific assessment of risks associated with food and medicines, as well as for evaluation, approval and research in this area. This national government agency is part of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
The aim of the agreement signed on 12 July 2021 is to strengthen scientific and technical cooperation between ANSES and the NIFDS as part of their respective roles, particularly through knowledge sharing. Working in the area of food safety, the two agencies, which had already begun collaborating on microbiological risks, chemical risks and nutrition, plan to extend their partnership to toxicology thanks to this new agreement.
In the coming years, ANSES and the NIFDS expect to carry out joint actions in risk assessment and research, and the sharing of knowledge and technical expertise, including through the implementation of joint projects, scientist exchanges and visits, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge through seminars and workshops.
Under the first agreement in 2016, the collaboration between the two agencies included study visits to ANSES by NIFDS scientists and the hosting of two international scientific events with other European partners:
- the joint international ANSES / BfR / DTU-Food / NIFDS symposium “Global Past, Present and Future Challenges in Risk Assessment – Strengthening Consumer Health Protection”, in Berlin in December 2017;
- the joint ANSES / BfR / DTU-Food / NIFDS scientific conference “Foodborne Pathogens & Whole Genome Sequencing: Impact on Public Health Protection”, in Paris in March 2019.
The NIFDS has also signed cooperation agreements with ANSES’s European partners, such as the BfR (German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) and EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), thus strengthening opportunities for collaboration between risk assessment agencies in Europe and South Korea.