No secret sauce: a recipe for transparent science
Science on the Menu: A Food Safety Podcast by EFSA
European Food Safety Authority
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🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Access to documents is a crucial ingredient of open science. But how do lawyers assess what requires protecting and what to release? When do the courts intervene? In this episode, we explore how the law plays a fundamental role in our daily meals. We look at how the independence of scientists is evaluated and cases where intellectual property rights may be overridden. And we investigate how artificial intelligence is shaking up current legal frameworks. Join us as we digest the law behind your menu.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just to give you a few numbers, in 2025, we processed more than 310 access to documents requests. |
| 0:10.3 | And we disclosed thousands of documents. So it's quite a resource impacting activity. |
| 0:30.1 | Hello and welcome to another episode of science on the menu. My name's Ed Bray and today we're going to be discussing something a little bit different on your menus, something that you |
| 0:34.4 | probably don't think about immediately when it comes to the food chain, |
| 0:38.0 | and that's the law. |
| 0:39.6 | We're going to be talking about access to documents. |
| 0:42.2 | We're going to be talking about rules on the independence of scientists, |
| 0:45.8 | and we're going to be talking about artificial intelligence, |
| 0:48.4 | and how that poses challenges to the legal framework that we have in Europe. |
| 0:53.7 | And here with me to discuss this |
| 0:55.7 | is our own legal expert, and that's Louisa Veneur. Thank you very much for joining us, |
| 1:00.3 | Louisa. Thanks to you, Edwards. Let's start with the big question that I would have. You're the |
| 1:07.8 | first guest that we have who is not a scientist at EFSA. |
| 1:12.7 | You're a legal expert. |
| 1:14.2 | What is a legal expert doing at a food safety body like EFSA? |
| 1:19.4 | What does the law have to do with food safety in general? |
| 1:24.0 | Actually, if you think all EFSA's operations are governed by laws, legal frameworks, regulatory framework. |
| 1:32.3 | So I think legal officers are very useful. |
| 1:35.3 | In the sense that as a legal unit, we provide independent legal advice and support to all EFSA with a view of allowing that the decision |
| 1:46.1 | making is legally sound. If you think about not only the funding regulations, so our general |
| 1:52.6 | food law, 178, Regulation 178 of 2002, the transparency regulation with the new obligations |
| 2:00.2 | that put forward, the financial regulation |
... |
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