In a bid to freshen up traditional public consultations, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has taken a novel approach by piloting an alternative engagement format designed to stir more lively, inclusive, and transparent stakeholder participation. This move, rolled out on 5 February 2026, targets stakeholders involved in food safety risk assessments, including scientific experts, industry players, regulatory authorities, and civil society entities, all set to have their voices captured more interactively and precisely. Their feedback and reactions will be crucial as EFSA explores this new consultation frontier.
This initiative is drawn from an External Scientific Report published by EFSA’s scientific assessment body on 5 February 2026. The pilot centers around EFSA’s forthcoming scientific opinion on plant lectins in food, aiming to test a targeted, interactive public hearing format alongside the usual written consultations.
The document is an exploratory, piloting report rather than formal legislation or binding policy. It includes concrete testing of engagement tools, such as moderated interactive hearings, and evaluates effectiveness through feedback from EFSA staff and stakeholders. Instead of numerical targets or new institutional setups, it proposes a decision tree and criteria to determine when such alternative engagement methods are appropriate, based on the topic’s nature and stakeholder interest.
EFSA leans towards increasing stakeholder engagement through interactive formats, balancing inclusiveness and transparency with scientific rigor. The pilot underscores an expansion of consultation methods rather than centralization or regulatory tightening, illustrating EFSA's adjustment in communication strategy. This sets a trend towards strengthening the transparency and detail of scientific input collection without imposing regulatory burdens.
EFSA staff encounter new operational demands to moderate and facilitate interactive hearings but gain richer, technically nuanced input. Stakeholders, including industry and civil society, benefit from greater opportunities for dialogue yet face a steeper time commitment. National authorities observe enhanced transparency and may see improved alignment with EFSA outputs, while consumers potentially gain from more robust assessments informed by diverse inputs.
This report appears to be the start of a novel approach in EFSA’s stakeholder engagement journey. Further refinements and possible institutional adoption of complementary formats are expected, with EFSA likely to solicit input from other EU regulatory entities and stakeholders to fine-tune these engagement practices.
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