Participating Projects.

CEFSER

Strategic objectives of the project is to reinforce the research capacities of the Laboratory for Chemical Contaminants (LabCHEMCONT) at the Faculty of Technology/University of Novi Sad, in order to establish a Centre of Excellence in Food Safety and Emerging Risks (CEFSER), strengthening its leading role in the regional research community.

Contact: biljana@tf.uns.ac.rs 

Website: www.tf.uns.ac.rs/CEFSERweb/CEFSERindex.html  

Food safety is currently one of the most important challenges confronting consumer, producers, and distributors.
It is also an issue that is in the centre of interest of scientists and experts because it has great health, economic,
and legal consequences.  Increased environmental pollution, rapid expansion in international trade of food and in tourism sector have resulted in increased risk of higher intake of food chemical contaminants through diet and detrimental health effects.
Furthermore, the issue of emerging pollutants has risen to the forefront of the food safety area within the past
decade. Emerging contaminants are previously unknown or unrecognized pollutants. Most of them have been
present in the environment for a long time, but their significance and presence are only now being elucidated and,
therefore, here is a need for reliable data on their occurrence in food in order to perform a valid quantitative risk
assessment of human exposure. Food safety is a global challenge, too large to be met by countries acting alone.

CEFSER is the FP7 project dedicated to the reinforcement of research capacities at the Laboratory for Chemical Contaminants in Food and the Environment (LabCHEMCONT) at the Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad,
Serbia, in order to become a unique Western Balkan Country (WBC) Centre of Excellence in Food Safety and Emerging Risks.

Through postulated general objectives such as capital investments in a highly sophisticated analytical instrument, upgrading of the existing equipment, reinforcement of the human resources (hiring, mobility, etc), and networking with advanced EU institutions, CEFSER integrates LabCHEMCONT and the Faculty of Technology within the European Research Area, contributing to general harmonization of R&D within the food safety and emerging risks research.

The project impact:

• improvement of the potentials of the Faculty of Technology to participate in FP7 projects
• better integration of the Faculty of Technology in ERA
• contribution to the WBC regional capacity building

CEFSER is strongly linked with excellent research centers such as:

• CHIRON AS from Norway,
• Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at Vrije University (VU) from the Netherlands,
• the Spanish Instituto de Investigaciones Quimicas y Ambientales from Barcelona (IIQAB-CSIC), and
• Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) from Prague, Czech Republic.