The EU-FORA programme provides a unique opportunity for organisations working in EFSA's remit to widen their networks and exchange knowledge and best practices.

The programme allows the organisations to:

• offer a work programme to a fellow from another Article 36 organisation
• identify among their staff a fellow to be trained by a partnering organisation (hosting site).

For the 2021/2022 programme, DFI successfully applied as a hosting site. The selected fellow, Elisa Palmas, has been a member of the DFI team for the entire duration of the fellowship and has actively contributed to the daily work of the Institute.

The EU-FORA work programme was comprised of four modules. The fellow had an overview of the different data analysis tools that can be applied also in a wider range of food safety risk assessment areas, to acquire skills and competencies that can be used in her future career. She got an overview of the concept of ERI workflow, the various procedures and possible outcomes, The fellow was deeply involved in the weekly identification of potential emerging risks through the help of data analysis tools for screening and prioritising large data sets to capture dependent changes in the food system. Our institution has ongoing projects with both governmental and industrial partners, so the fellow had a great opportunity to join these projects and see the role of result implementation in practical applications, and how ERI or other data analysis-based systems can be turned into practical applications.

The fellow worked within our expert teams attending Teams and Unit meetings, as well as all associated social events. In addition, as an integral member of the EFSA, the fellow followed a wide range of continuous internal risk assessment training programmes, workshops, presentations and webinars.

For a detailed report of the fellow's work programme, see the special issue of the EFSA Journal.