Participatory process and FSOLabs
A participatory process is a collaborative approach where diverse stakeholders—including researchers, policymakers, industry actors, and consumers—actively engage to co-produce knowledge, share perspectives, and shape decisions toward common food safety goals. In the FoodSafety4EU (FS4EU) project, this approach was operationalized through four Food Safety Operational Labs (FSOLabs) involving over 80 food safety experts and managers. These FSOLabs served as platforms for multi-actor consultations, workshops, and surveys that gathered wide-ranging inputs from the food safety community.
Exploitation of the participatory process in some EU Projects
The EU Food Safety Platform, established under the FS4EU project, continues to exploit the FSOLab methodology across several initiatives and European projects, by adapting the approach to other living labs, and/or participatory processes and activities, thus supporting an effective multi-actor engagement and implementing the Multi-Actor Approach, in line with the specific requirements of the EU COMMISSION Vision for Agriculture and food, FOOD2030 strategy, and Horizon Europe programme.
The FoodSafety4EU case: the Food Safety Operational Labs – “FSOLab”
A FSOLab is a “room” for social experiments for addressing complex food safety-related topics on a systemic level.
In practice, it is a cycle of meetings among experts from different levels of the Food Safety Systems. The experts discuss and find new ways to tackle selected food safety challenges in a continuous learning process.
How does a FSOLab work?
A FSOLab is a learning process in which a permanent group of experts meet in structured workshops and discuss according to a common methodology, supported by a Lab Manager and a Lab Facilitator.
3 learning cycles of workshops drive the participants to identify, select and set up pilot ideas and actions, in order to implement in a pilot action and evaluate its application and sustainability for its further adoption.
These learning cycles are focused on relevant selected topics (4 FSOLabs), and are aligned through cross-learning workshops to share methodology, tools and results, during the process.
Who can participate in our FSOLabs?
Experts representing voices from institutions, Food Safety Authorities, policy makers, EFSA representatives, Ministeries, Associations, Food Business Operators, Research & Universities can feed the dialogue on “hot” topics for the Food Safety System of the future.
They’re invited from the FS4EU Hub Manager to represent the different European regions.
The first FSOLabs cycle started in July 2021 and was concluded in September 2021.
The first cross-learning meeting was held on 28-29 September 2021
to share the experiences and combine some input from the various Labs.
what a nice and fruitful experience!
The FSOLabs results will contribute to co-create the future European Food Safety strategies and policies for the European Commission including input from all EU!