Opinion Of The Scientific Committee On A Request From Efsa Related To The Early Identification Of Emerging Risks

The mission and tasks of EFSA are described in Regulation (EC) No 178/2002. These include the responsibility to set up a system for identifying emerging risks. "The Authority shall establish monitoring procedures for systematically searching for, collecting, collating and analysing information and data with a view to the identification of emerging risks in the fields within its mission" (art. 34.1). An emerging risk (ER) for the purpose of this opinion is an issue that in the future may pose a risk to the health of the consumer, animals or the environment. The indication of an ER may relate (1) to a significant exposure to a hazard not recognized earlier, or (2) to a new/increased exposure to a known hazard (it is then called re-emerging risk).To fulfill its task, EFSA will have to collect information from many different sources. The scientific literature is obviously an important but rather slow channel, while EFSA can very quickly make use of its internal sources of information; these sources are EFSA staff and members of the Scientific Committee and Panels who can bring in new knowledge from a wide environment, the Advisory Forum that has already established links with Member States to share information, and the Stakeholder Consultative Platform for a broad information exchange regarding emerging risks. Direct links with external sources of information such as relevant research projects, EU and international bodies should also be established over time.In order to predict an emerging risk at a very early stage, parameters that are remotely and often indirectly connected to the food and feed chain have to be studied. In the outsourced project "Forming a global system for identifying food-related emerging risks - EMRISK" coordinated by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA), a large number of such parameters (indicators) were identified. The evaluation and validation of these indicators is very resource demanding and will be achievable by EFSA only in a long term perspective. As these indicators are of interest for several organisations, a close collaboration with others is essential to ensure complementary work. There are already some organisations that have established systems for identifying emerging risks (also called "early warning systems" or "horizon scanning systems") and the development of IT tools used for these purposes is in an intensive phase. EFSA should as a first step exercise its vigilance to a limited number of key areas and direct its work towards the identification and validation of relevant indicators for these areas.It is not recommended that EFSA should try to build one large network for the early detection of emerging risks, as different partners may need different arrangements regarding e.g. confidential information. A number of links and small networks that could be combined to address a given case are considered as being more useful. EFSA would have to establish contacts at an early stage and come to agreements with all partners, especially on a transparent policy for sharing, treating and releasing information.EFSA will need to devote new internal resources for the work with emerging risks. A broad competence is needed for the initial assessment of the information potentially useful to identify a new issue. The relevant expertise of the scientific staff at EFSA would be involved to ensure a primary filter of signals. If the initial assessment indicates that the risk may be of concern, a more thorough assessment has to be done, either internally within EFSA Panels and Scientific Committee, or using external expertise, depending on the issue, the urgency, and the resources needed.