Universities as key partners for the new challenges regarding food safety & quality in ASEAN

Unipi Team Leader: Alessandra Guidi, Department of Veterinary Science

Food safety issues have reached a dramatic level in most Asian Countries. In its "integration program" ASEAN has put food security as one of its 12 priorities. It is abundantly documented that most of these problems are due to both qualitative and quantitative limitations in food safety management, mainly due to inadequate skills of workers, who often do not operate in compliance with the good practices for food safety and quality, and to a poor official control system. This lack at the level of human resources is strongly related to the lacks in the higher education system, the improvement of which is object of our proposal by: a. increasing the capacity of Asian partner'university's staff in the area of food safety and quality, by sharing experiences and organising training courses.b. training them in "training engineering" (TE) methodology, encompassing 2 wide surveys, first on the relationships between the education system and professionals (public & private) and second on their skill's needs; c. developing 3 training modules in food safety & quality, adapted to the professional needs, to be included into master programs, with credit transfer between partners. This has also to be seen as a "practical exercise" of TE for the project team. Increasing the teacher's capacities (a) and helping them building adapted training modules (b and c) will consequently make the graduates more proficient when starting their professional lives.d. enhancing the links between partner universities and professionals, in order to build a sustainable relationships between these 2 "worlds", essential requisite to better training and research. It is also planned to involved university's top management, on necessary changes towards professionalization and feasible adaptation in their management strategye. Finally, the project's results will be disseminated in the ASEAN countries, notably through short technical training modules and E-Learning modules for teachers & professionals.

Coordinator: INSTITUT NATIONAL D'ETUDES SUPERIEURES AGRONOMIQUES DE MONTPELLIER (France) 

Other participants:

UNIVERSITAET FUER BODENKULTUR WIEN (Austria) 
HOC VIEN NONG NGHIEP VIET NAM (Viet Nam) 
KASETSART UNIVERSITY (Thailand)
ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (Thailand)
ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE (Cambodia) 
TRUONG DAI HOC BACH KHOA HANOI - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HUST (Vien Nam)
TRUONG DAI HOC NONG LAM - THANH PHO HO CHI MINH (Viet Nam) 
UNIVERSITA DI PISA
INSTITUT AGRONOMIQUE VETERINAIRE ETFORESTIER DE FRANCE (France)
UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE (Belgium) 
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY OF CAMBODIA (Cambodia)
PRINCE OF SONGKLA UNIVERSITY (Thailand)

Start date: 15-10-2015

End date: 14-10-2018

EU Grant: 995.759 €

Project website: https://www.montpellier-supagro.fr/asifood/