BIOSAFENET
The Biosafety Research Communication Network (BIOSAFENET) is a pro-GM lobby network that says its goal is to offer
- robust public information on the biosafety research conducted on genetically modified plants. BIOSAFENET and other European initiatives contribute to the bundling of biosafety knowledge from various EU research programmes and from existing European GMO biosafety networks.[1]
BIOSAFENET is headed by Professor Joachim Schiemann.[2]
Schiemann claims "the project is not pro or con genetically modified organisms."[3]
However, BIOSAFENET's economic agenda is clear. It says of its aim to disseminate "robust public information on the biosafety research conducted on genetically modified (GM) plants" that
- Such research and its comprehensive, enlightening results often have been relegated to a subordinate role or ignored altogether in long-standing debates on the safety of transgenic crops. This situation hampers the ambition of the European Union to become the most competitive and dynamic science-based (bio-)economy of the world.[4]
Just as clear is BIOSAFENET's lobbying role. One of its stated aims is
- Provision of science-based arguments for political decisions[5]
BIOSAFENET works in partnership with the German biotech PR firm Genius (see below, Project partners), which has many biotech and agrochemical companies among its clients.
Project partners
- Julius Kühn Institute, JKI, Germany
- International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, ICGEB, Italy
- Agricultural Research Centre of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, ARI, Hungary
- Genius GmbH, GENIUS, Germany
- National Hellenic Research Foundation, NHRF, Greece[6]
Funding
BIOSAFENET was previously funded with EU public money.[7] As at January 2011 it is unclear whether this funding continues.
Contact
- Professor Joachim Schiemann
- Julius Kühn Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants
- Erwin-Baur-Str. 27, 06484
- Quedlinburg, Germany
- T: +49 3946 47 503
- F: + 493946 47 500
- E: joachim.schiemann@jki.bund.de
- W: www.jki.bund.de
Resources
Notes
- ↑ BIOSAFENET, Driving biosafety research on GM plants, undated, accessed 21 Jan 2011
- ↑ BIOSAFENET, Driving biosafety research on GM plants, undated, accessed 21 Jan 2011
- ↑ BIOSAFENET, Driving biosafety research on GM plants, undated, accessed 21 Jan 2011
- ↑ BIOSAFENET: An EU-funded network of European scientists, Biosaferes, acc 21 Jan 2011
- ↑ BIOSAFENET: An EU-funded network of European scientists, Biosaferes, acc 21 Jan 2011
- ↑ BIOSAFENET, Driving biosafety research on GM plants, undated, accessed 21 Jan 2011
- ↑ BIOSAFENET, Driving biosafety research on GM plants, undated, accessed 21 Jan 2011
