Science strategy

The Agency's Science and Evidence Strategy 2010-2015 sets out how we will use science and evidence to deliver safer food for the nation.

The science strategy describes our strategic priorities for the evidence we will need and the activities we will carry out, to make sure we obtain and use that evidence effectively to support the delivery of our Strategy to 2015, measure progress, inform development of our future strategy, and support our ability to deliver in the long-term.

The science strategy was updated in March 2011, to reflect the updated Agency’s Strategy to 2015 and other progress and developments since the science strategy was first launched in February 2010.

Key features of the strategy

The key features of the updated science strategy are:

Five priority evidence themes: the key evidence we will need, to deliver our strategic objectives, test progress, and identify and shape our future priorities

food safety – UK production and consumption
food safety – imports
food behaviours and information
effective risk-based regulation, enforcement and compliance
strategic and cross-cutting evidence and analysis

The first four themes address Agency’s strategic outcomes directly, while the fifth supports the underpinning and longer-term and work that looks beyond the period of the Strategic Plan.

Five priority activity themes: the actions we will take to obtain and use evidence effectively

identifying and obtaining the evidence we need
partnerships
interpretation, knowledge transfer and translation
knowledge, skills and capabilities
appraisal and evaluation

Evidence plan

Two important aspects of the science strategy are:

Using a broader definition of evidence to make sure we bring together all the relevant expertise and evidence need to meet the challenges we face. This goes beyond just commissioning new work and considering and giving proper emphasis to gathering and using existing evidence, translating evidence into actions, and evaluating impacts.
Strategic prioritisation of our evidence needs across all our work, so we can identify the best package of work across all our needs. This results in an evidence plan of the main work we aim to commission for the next one to two years, which we refresh annually. We publish the evidence plan to provide transparency and to invite external comments, before we commission new work.