Governance
EFSA is managed by the Executive Director, who in turn reports to an independent Management Board governing EFSA. The members of the Management Board are appointed by the Council of the European Union in consultation with the European Parliament following an open call for expression of interest organised by the European Commission. They are appointed to act in the public interest and do not represent any government, organisation or sector. All members sign a declaration of interests. The Management Board has no power to review EFSA’s scientific outputs or to influence their adoption procedure.
EFSA works closely with all of its partners, in particular the national food safety agencies as well as with stakeholders in the food chain including consumer, environmental and other interest groups as well as industry. While dialogue is important, independence is critical, and EFSA ensures that the experts on its Scientific Committee and Panels are able to discuss and adopt scientific opinions free from any inappropriate influence.
How EFSA ensures independence of its scientific advice
The Authority applies a robust set of internal mechanisms and working processes to safeguard the independence of the scientific work of its Scientific Committee and Panels.
Rules on the selection of experts
Members of the Scientific Committee, Scientific Panels and their Working Groups, as well as other external experts contributing to the work of EFSA, are selected based on their scientific competence and expertise, and according to objective and transparent criteria. During the selection process, interests declared by the applicants are also reviewed. In addition, independent external evaluators review the assessment of applications for scientific panel membership to ensure that the selection process is coherent.
Good risk assessment practices and adoption of scientific opinions
EFSA has developed a comprehensive body of good risk assessment practices to guide the work of its Scientific Committee and Panels to help ensure its opinions respect the highest scientific standards. EFSA’s Scientific Committee has also adopted a set of recommendations on transparency in risk assessment to ensure maximum transparency of its independent scientific work.
All the final scientific opinions adopted by the Scientific Committee and Scientific Panels are based on most up-to-date scientific information and knowledge. They are the outcome of collective deliberations and decisions, each member having an equal say. No one expert can unduly influence the decisions of the Panel, and minority views are recorded. If EFSA has identified a conflict of interest for a panel member to participate in the scientific activities related to a certain a topic, it is recorded in the final opinion. In addition, as part of the review process to ensure the quality of its scientific opinions, EFSA verifies appropriate implementation of its policy with respect to Declaration of Interests.
- Good risk assessment practice
- Workflow for scientific opinions
- Transparency in risk assessment
- Quality assurance
Declaration of interests (DOIs)
All experts of the Scientific Committee, Scientific Panels and Working Groups are required to sign a declaration of commitment, including a commitment to act independently, and to provide an annual declaration of interests (ADoI) for each EFSA group of which they are a member. EFSA closely monitors and reviews the ADoIs of all its scientists. In accordance with the principle of transparency, all of the ADoIs as well as the mandates for each Panel and working group are published on the EFSA website. Experts are also required to declare in advance their specific interests for each agenda point of a meeting in writing, through a specific declaration of interests (SDoI), and any additional interests orally at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes of meetings are published which show how the policy on declarations has been followed. For example, they will show when an expert declared a particular interest and if that led to his/her withdrawing from the meeting for a particular item.
EFSA recognises that high quality scientific expertise – which is the main prerequisite for an expert to be invited to contribute to EFSA’s work – is by nature based on prior experience. Moreover, having an interest does not necessarily imply that there is a conflict of interest. EFSA screens the information provided by an expert in the DOI and assesses whether a declared interest constitutes a conflict on a case-by-case basis. The evaluation takes into account the interests declared by the expert in relation to the mandate of the group in question and the role of the expert in this group. For instance, involvement in industry-funded research does not necessarily constitute a conflict of interest provided that the research does not relate directly to the topic being considered by the Panel or Working Group. In the case of an identified potential conflict of interest on a certain topic, EFSA assesses whether the expert will be allowed to participate, participate only in part or not be allowed to participate at all in EFSA’s scientific work related to that topic.
Role of EFSA staff
EFSA staff act in the public interest and are subject to several obligations under EU staff regulations, including that of acting with independence and integrity and of avoiding conflicts of interests. EFSA staff may provide scientific and administrative support to the Scientific Panels but the Panel experts independently deliberate, decide conclusions and adopt final scientific opinions. In order to ensure a coherent implementation of staff obligations with respect to independence, EFSA requires all its professional staff to fill out an annual declaration of interests. These ADoIs are screened and those of EFSA’s Management Team are published on the EFSA website. EFSA ensures that staff members are not assigned to projects where potential conflicts of interests may arise.
Staff who leave EFSA are required to inform the Authority with respect to future employment, within two years of leaving, so that EFSA can consider whether that may lead to a conflict of interest.