Animal studies in GMO risk assessment have been at the heart of several controversies within and outside the scientific domain. Although normally a purely scientific endeavour, these studies were, therefore, opened for stakeholder scrutiny and input by making available to all interested parties research plans, draft results and conclusions, as well as raw data and by engaging stakeholder and external experts in planning and interpreting these studies and in drawing general conclusions. G-TwYST investigated the normative issues linked to the science in these conflicts and used these results as inputs in the participation process.

The project was coordinated by the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover; the IFZ team was Work Package Leader for the participation process and Task Leader for the analysis of the conflicts on animal studies.

G-TwYST is linked to other FP7 projects. GRACE conducts toxicity studies on animals in a participative setting, whereas PreSto develops a research agenda and implementation plan for a multinational research programme in the field of GMO risk assessment. This research programme was implemented as an ERA-Net in the context of Horizon 2020.