Professor Christopher Brewster is Professor of the Application of Emerging Technologies at Maastricht University, as well as being a Senior Scientist in the Data Science group of TNO. At Maastricht, he is the co-Principal Investigator on the Marie-Curie ITN Knowgraph (2019-2023), PI of the H2020 EUREKA project, and the Agtech 7 Erasmus + project. At TNO, he was scientific co-ordinator for the Dutch public-private funded Techruption Blockchain project, and is currently principal investigator on H2020 project BLOCK.IS. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Sheffield on the topic of automated ontology learning from texts, and was previously Senior Lecturer at Aston University, UK. His research interests include Semantic Technologies, Open and Linked Data, interoperability architectures and Data Governance. He has focussed on the agrifood domain as an application domain for many years, and has a particular concern for the environmental impact of the agrifood system. At TNO, he is the scientific lead of the Connected Business team in the Data Science group. He has published over 70 papers in conferences and journals, and organised many workshops. Further details http://www.cbrewster.com

There is much talk about the role that information technology (ICT) can play in ensuring food safety. For example, there has been much hype concerning the use of blockchain technologies for creating trust between disparate actors across the food web. In this talk, we will explore a number of technical approaches, discussing both architectures and data standards. We will argue, based on work currently in development under the aegis of the H2020 DiTECT project, that the technical solutions are available to collect data (for example concerning microbiological laboratory tests), to share data (in an appropriate and controlled manner), and then to make use of this data whether it is to predict potential food crises or in reaction to such an occurrence. There remains a major challenge which is too easily dismissed as an issue of “adoption”. Stakeholders fear that their data will be mis-used by third parties so careful thought needs to be given to a combination of digital capabilities and appropriate governance so as to persuade stakeholders to engage in any ICT based system for food safety. Here we will propose that appropriate application of the FAIR data principles (i.e. ensuring that metadata exists to make the data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) while fully taking into account issues of business confidentiality and regulatory obligations is the most constructive approach to take.