Jean Monnet's project on European food safety control in NULES of Ukraine: experience in obtaining and implementing a grant agreement

 

     The main idea of ​​the program is the desire to unite Europe, promote the benefits of European integration, support and development of cooperation, dissemination of European studies in Europe and other continents. The initiative of the grant conditions of the program belongs to the Council of European Universities and teachers from all over the world who conduct research in the field of European integration. Grant funds are earmarked and allocated to universities to start in the educational process of teaching disciplines that are directly related to the development of European law, European economy, education, science, culture, history, theory and practice of European integration. The content of the Jean Monnet European Education Module under the terms of the grant project is to develop and teach specially designed short-term courses on European integration for a certain category of students.

 

     I first got acquainted with the possibilities of the Jean Monnet educational program in 2014 at the information days of the National Erasmus + Office in Ukraine. Then the success of the team from Sumy University became inspiring, which according to the results of the current competition, having submitted 3 applications in the last hours before the end of the project acceptance, received support from the EU. The advantages of this area, I defined for myself the relative "simplicity" of the application, because it can be submitted from one educational institution, and does not require supporting documents from the relevant ministry (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine), which significantly eliminates bureaucratization of the application process. In addition, projects are selected directly by the European Commission's (Brussels) Department of Education, Audiovisual and Culture on an annual basis, which adds to the objectivity of the selection process and eliminates bias.

 

     The very idea of ​​the module first arose and was designed and submitted to the competition entitled "The EU Official Control of Foodstuffs and Feed" in 2016 under the number 575569-EPP-1-2016-1 -UA-EPPJMO-MODULE and missed 14 points to pass.

 

     After the analysis of shortcomings in February 2017, a draft module for the Erasmus + Jean Monnet program 587548-EPP-1-2017-1-EN-EPPJMO-MODULE “EU Food Safety Control” was prepared and submitted for competition»). The selection procedure lasted more than 5 months and by the end of July the results became known. The project, submitted by the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences, received funding from the European Union. This was the second project from NULES of Ukraine, approved by the European Commission's Department for Education, Audiovisual and Culture. In 2016, the project "Environmental Policy and EU Law" began to be implemented at the Faculty of Law. In 2017, 833 applications were submitted for funding under the program. 138 projects were selected from the Program countries. 10 Ukrainian higher education institutions and one public organization received funding from the European Union for the implementation of 12 projects under the Jean Monnet direction, the total amount of which is about 400,000 Euros.

 

     I was inspired by the idea of ​​creating a project on this topic by working with literache. The book "Fundamentals of food law and EU policy. Ten Years of the European Food Safety Authority (Foundations of EU Food Law and Policy. Ten Years of the European Food Safety Authority) by Alberto Alemanno, a scientist and politician who was awarded the title of Professor Jean Monnet in 2009. and teaches at the Paris School of Business Studies was crucial. I was lucky enough to meet the author at the Jean Monnet Conference 2017 "A turning point for Europe", which took place in Brussels on 27 and 28 November.

 

     By the way, after the invitation to our introductory International scientific-practical conference "Food Safety Control. Ukraine-EU: Unresolved Issues ” of the experts of the EU Project “Improvement of the food safety control system in Ukrain” they started to travel to Ukraine, giving a one-day lecture on European food safety control in various agricultural educational institutions of Ukraine. Of course, the budget of projects such as Jean Monnet and "Improving the food safety control system in Ukraine" cannot be compared. In cooperation with this project, we published a manual "Analysis of microbiological hazards in the food chain" and held a seminar on "A new approach to food safety in the training program of veterinary doctors of Ukrainian free economic zones: problems and challenges" on November 1 and 2, 2018.