OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE AND SELECTED PROJECTS
Explore our work across human and animal health, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, public health, animal welfare and the One Health approach through selected projects for European institutions and agencies.
Human health
While healthcare remains primarily the responsibility of the Member States, Article 168 of the TFEU requires that ‘a high level of human health protection be ensured within all EU policies’. Recent decades have seen EU public health policy and law develop in line with the ‘health in all policies’ approach. A range of interventions support the single market and promote the health of EU citizens, while respecting the prerogatives of the Member States and national public health systems. The unprecedented global health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced cooperation between the Member States and fostered a stronger role for the EU in protecting citizens’ health. Our track record in human health includes several studies on pharmaceutical and medical devices legislation, integration of public health concerns into other EU policies such as Cohesion Policy and biodiversity protection, analysis of third-country legislation on public health, provision of expertise to the European Parliament on a wide range of topics, and support to the European Commission on policy and legislation
For several years, we have supported the European Commission in the design, evaluation and implementation of medical products legislation. This includes supporting the analysis of the EU’s general pharmaceutical legislation’s provisions on shortages with a study on future-proofing pharmaceutical legislation (read study here), assisting HERA with a study on a possible Critical Medicines Act, aiming to prevent and mitigate shortages of medicines critical to the health of European citizens (read study here), and the evaluation and impact assessment of the EU’s general pharmaceutical legislation for DG SANTE (read study here). We are currently supporting the European Commission with the implementation of the Medical Devices Regulation, focusing on medical radiological equipment and the reprocessing of single-use medical devices, as well as with the implementation of the Clinical Trials Regulation.
Since 2010, we have supported the European Parliament to organise workshops on a wide range of public health topics. These workshops gather experts from the EU and beyond to provide policy support for members of the Parliamentary Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), the Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT) and the former Special Committee on COVID-19 (COVI). We identify the experts with the most relevant profiles, prepare background research, press releases and a final workshop summary. Topics in recent workshops and studies include: environmental determinants of health; health disinformation; obesity; COVID-19 and long COVID; EU preparedness and response; antimicrobial resistance; novel tobacco products; robots in healthcare; the sustainability of health systems; complementary and alternative therapies for patients; autoimmune diseases; health promotion and primary prevention; the role of education and sport in the fight against cancer; and the case of glyphosate in the EU’s pesticides risk assessment system.
European countries wishing to join the EU must align their legislation with that of the EU in all enlargement chapters. We have supported DG SANTE to assess the alignment of national laws in 13 non-EU countries (enlargement candidate countries and micro-states) with the EU public health acquis (i.e. medicines for human and veterinary use, medical devices, cross-border healthcare, tobacco control, substances of human origin and serious cross-border health threats, including communicable diseases). The results of this work allow DG SANTE (and the Directorate-Generate for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR)) to provide recommendations to these countries and to in-house experts for EU negotiations, as well as to prepare annual country reports.
Animal health and welfare
Animal health and welfare policy is shared between the EU and the Member States. In recent decades, the EU has developed a comprehensive framework, most notably the Animal Health Law and species-specific welfare rules covering farming, transport and slaughter. This framework aims to prevent and control transmissible animal diseases, safeguard public health under the ‘One Health’ approach, ensure the smooth functioning of the single market for animals and animal products and raise welfare standards across the Union, while respecting Member States’ responsibilities in enforcement and veterinary services.
Challenges such as recurrent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza and African swine fever, as well as growing societal expectations in relation to welfare, have reinforced cooperation between Member States and strengthened the EU’s role in protecting animal health and promoting animal welfare.
We have carried out a number of studies assisting the European Commission in the full EU policy cycle from impact assessments (e.g. animal transport), to analysis of transposition of directives (e.g. Directive on the protection of laboratory animals (2010/63/EC) and evaluation of implementation of EU instruments (e.g. zoos, seals).
In 2022-2023, we assisted DG SANTE with a study supporting the impact assessment accompanying the proposal for a revision of the EU legislation concerned with the welfare of animals during transport, falling under a broader review of the animal welfare legislation undertaken in the context of the Farm to Fork Strategy. The study focused on the collection and analysis of evidence to assess the expected significant economic, social, environmental and animal welfare impacts of the actions proposed by the Commission to amend the legislation, in line with the European Commission’s Better Regulation Guidelines.
Read study here.
In 2025-2026, we covered all regulatory aspects of the study supporting the Commission’s assessment to follow-up the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Fur Free Europe’ completed for HaDEA and DG SANTE. This study assessed the necessity and justification of the bans requested by the Citizens Initiative on fur farming and trade by assessing the socioeconomic, environmental and public health impacts of introducing such bans through EU legislation, as well as the impact of potential alternative measures.
Read about the Citizens Initiative here.
In 2024-2025, we completed a study on support to the fitness check of Regulation (EC) No 1007/2009 on trade in seal products and of Council Directive 83/129/EEC concerning the importation into Member States of skins of certain seal pups and products derived therefrom.
The EU Seal Regime establishes a general ban on the placing of seal products on the EU market, adopted to safeguard animal welfare standards. In line with the Better Regulation Guidelines (BRG), we assessed whether the legislation had achieved its initial objectives, the associated costs and benefits, and the need for continued EU action, as well as identifying opportunities for simplification and potential impacts of amending the legislation.
We also carried out several studies for DG ENV on the Zoos Directive (1999/22/EC), starting with the study supporting the evaluation of the Zoos Directive, followed by the study supporting better implementation of the Zoos Directive, based on the conclusions of the evaluation and stakeholders’ implementation of the directive between 2019 and 2022.
We undertook a study on the genetics of dog and cat breeding and digital solutions for their traceability for DG SANTE. In 2023, the European Commission put forward a legislative proposal on the welfare of dogs and cats and their traceability, which envisages that operators of breeding establishments must ensure that breeding strategies do not result in genotypes and phenotypes that have detrimental effects on the welfare of the dogs and cats, or of their descendants. We are supporting the accompanying study with a legal analysis and case studies on the applicable regulatory and non-regulatory approaches in the Member States and third countries to inform the preparation of delegated acts.
We also contributed to a study on the need for, added value of, and feasibility of introducing a ‘positive list’ of pets across the EU for DG ENV. The project assessed the potential of a science-based EU-wide positive list of animals allowed to be kept and/or traded as pets in the EU under appropriate welfare conditions, without harm to animal or public health. We analysed the legal feasibility of a potential EU positive list, as well as its coherence with other international and EU instruments.