The Project

• Legal ground, background and overall objectives

  The legal framework of the SPICED project

  The legal framework for the SPICED project can be found in the Grant Agreement and the Consortium Agreement.

  The Grant Agreement is entered into force between the European Community, represented by the European Commission, and the beneficiaries. The provisions in the Grant Agreement are fixed and cannot be subject to negotiation. The Grant Agreement sets the main framework for the project such as the budget, the duration and the work to be carried out.

  The Consortium Agreement is entered into relations between the partners (not the European Commission) of the consortium. The purpose of a Consortium Agreement is to regulate certain aspects of project governance not covered by the Grant Agreement. The Consortium Agreement’s provisions cannot be in conflict with the Grant Agreement. SPICED’s Consortium Agreement aims to facilitate the cooperation within the consortium and to create a structure for the project’s management, the distribution of the financial contribution, the ownership of results, access rights, liability, publication and the security management.

  Background

  Securing the food chains from primary production to consumer-ready food against major deliberate, accidental or natural CBRN contaminations is directly related with the safety of food products.
  
  Several EU projects, dealing with different aspects of food safety and security, are currently ongoing. The exchange of knowledge between these projects and SPICED is ensured, due to the fact that at least one SPICED project partner is partner or coordinator in one of these projects.
  
  The European Commission “Communication on Cooperation in the European Union on Preparedness and Response to Biological and Chemical Agent Attacks” (COM (2003) 320 final) as well as related acts, like the “Green Paper on Bio-preparedness” (COM (2007) 399 final) or “Communication on Strengthening Coordination on Generic Preparedness Planning for Public Health Emergencies at EU Level” (COM (2005) 605 final) and “The White Paper on Food Safety” (COM (1999) 719 final), were taken into account for the call SEC-2012.1.5-4.

  Overall objectives

  •    to characterize the heterogeneous matrices of spices and herbs and their respective production and supply chains in context with relevant biological and chemical hazards that can lead to major deliberate, accidental or natural contaminations in the food supply chain.
  
  •    to improve the knowledge on biological hazards properties as well as on-site and high throughput diagnostic methods for appropriate detection.
  
  •    to reduce (industrial) chemical adulterations and to ensure authenticity of spices and herbs by evaluation and improvement of non-targeted fingerprinting methods.
  
  •    to improve alerting, reporting and decontamination systems as well as techniques to ensure prevention and response on high quality level.

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