Evidence based uncertainty: what is needed now?

Abstract

This short commentary is a response to recent published work by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). EFSA is an independent regulatory body that provides scientific evidence to decision-makers in order to advise on what constitutes food safety in Europe. As a consequence, they set the tone for the conceptualisation of risk and uncertainty for those involved throughout the entire risk analysis process, as well as all the stake holders involved throughout the food chain. The aim of this piece is to summarise some of the key points that came out of a meeting held at the Royal Society (UK) in March 2019. The meeting brought together researchers and practitioners from across the world to consider ways of making improvements in the future to the development of guidance documents, such as the ones put together by authorities such as EFSA (2018, 2019) that detail how to carrying out risk assessment, how to analyse uncertainties, and how to communicate risk and uncertainty across the risk analysis process