Developing a good practice for the review of evidence relevant to GMO risk assessment

Recent controversies over peer-reviewed papers on potential impacts of genetically modified organisms underline the necessity for an explicit, transparent and unbiased reviewing of published results. Evidence synthesis approaches represent powerful tools to collect, evaluate and summarize such research results in a transparent, reproducible and unbiased manner. The EU-funded project GRACE (GMO Risk Assessment and Communication of Evidence) aims to explore, adapt, apply, and promote these tools to enhance accountability in decision-making by providing policy makers with comprehensive, science-based information on potential impacts (scenarios) of genetically modified plants and their derived products. Furthermore, GRACE will establish an open-access database in order to support the review process, to mirror the evidence synthesis, to assist the dissemination of results and conclusions, as well as to act, in more general terms, as an information resource on biosafety of genetically modified plants.