The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a call to select external reviewers for a working group that will help the Authority evaluate the quality of its scientific work. The call will close on 15 June 2009.

This is part of a quality assurance process based on an internal and an external review.

The external review will cover an evaluation of a sample of already adopted and published scientific outputs from EFSA. The aim will be to evaluate whether:

- best assessment practices were followed in the development of the output;

- conclusions and recommendations were supported by an adequate description of the reasoning underlying the interpretation of the scientific data; and

- the terms of reference were adequately addressed in the conclusions.

External review will form part of the overall review system to help assess the quality of EFSA’s scientific activities. The system involves a self review, during the development of documents, an internal review by senior scientific and communications staff at EFSA, and an external review by high-level independent external experts. The intention of the call is to identify experts interested in participating in the external review part of the quality assurance programme.

The external review will cover an evaluation of a sample of already adopted and published scientific outputs.

In total, 24 external experts will be included in the working group and a reserve list will be created. Three experts will work together to cover each of the seven areas of activity: Chemical risk assessment and connected fields (to be divided into two groups). Group 1: Nutrition and novel foods, Biological risk assessment and Zoonoses data collection and Group 2: Animal health and welfare, Plant health, GMO, Risk assessment methodologies and emerging risks.

External experts will be appointed on a personal basis. Participants will receive travel and subsistence expenses in connection with meetings relating to the work and an indemnity for their contribution to the External Review Subgroup.

To be eligible, candidates must not have been actively contributing to EFSA’s scientific output after 15 June 2007.

www.food.gov.uk/aboutus/agencyandeurope/efsafp/efsacallforscientificexperts