Work of the Senate Commission on Food Safety will be funded for three years

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG – German Research Foundation) is funding the work of the Senate Commission on Food Safety (Senatskommission zur gesundheitlichen Bewertung von Lebensmitteln – SKLM) with around 800,000 euros over the next three years. The SKLM advises the DFG Senate as well as federal and state governments, parliaments and authorities on food safety issues. Since summer 2017, Prof. Dr. Jan Hengstler, Head of the Toxicology Research Department at IfADo, has been the Chair of the SKLM.

Food safety and consumer health protection are top priorities for society. Constant innovations in the development of new processes or products in the food sector and a steady increase in scientific knowledge in this field, which is often the subject of controversial political and social debate, mean that there is a permanent need for scientific advice on the effects on food safety.

The Senate Commission works with scientific freedom in selecting topics and setting priorities and is the only independent science-driven body in Germany in the field of food safety. One of the SKLM’s main tasks is to develop policy statements and evaluation criteria to provide a framework for the scientific assessment of food ingredients and food technology processes.