BTSF ACADEMY opens its doors!

The European Commission's single learning and information portal for Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF) activities, covering animal health and welfare, borders/movements/official controls, food and feed, one health, plants, and contingency and risk planning. Its aim is to promote high levels of competence and knowledge of EU/EEA rules, leading to a harmonised approach to control systems and enforcement, while facilitating trade and market access.


The official opening of the BTSF ACADEMY supports public interest in food safety and contributes to the Commission’s priority on quality of life.

What is BTSF?

Better Training for Safer Food is a European Commission initiative, managed by DG SANTE since 2005 for EU/EEA and non-EU official control staff, and food business operators of invited countries for selected training activities. The services rely on the following principles:

Train the Trainer Multilingual dissemination Open knowledge Networking Support to multipliers Validated training material

BTSF ACADEMY at a glance

BTSF Academy training session
Now open to the public Access with EU Login account
140+ thematic courses available
24 European languages supported through eTranslation

Topics covered in the BTSF ACADEMY

ANIMAL HEALTH OFFICIAL CONTROLS FOOD & FEED ONE HEALTH PLANTS RISK PLANNING

Training formats

Face-to-face workshops Webinars Virtual workshops eLearning courses Simulation exercises Sustained Training Missions

Workshops

  • On average 30 participants per workshop
  • Delivered in various geographical locations
  • Tutor teams of 4-5 subject matter experts with a training coordinator
  • Training materials drafted by experts and validated by Commission technical units
  • All training material available in the BTSF ACADEMY
  • Dissemination kits available in 24 languages to support wider diffusion of knowledge

Sustained Training Missions

  • Allocated primarily at the request of Commission services
  • Concrete objectives and scope agreed with Commission services
  • Focused on a specific subject or aim
  • 1-3 subject matter experts or tutors
  • Specific and limited geographical locations
  • Up to 30 participants from the recipient country

eLearning

  • Asynchronous learning in BTSF ACADEMY
  • 24 courses available
  • Interactive learning materials
  • Ongoing assessment exercises
  • Participants scoring above 70% receive a certificate
  • eTranslation and in-browser translation ready
  • AI assisted in-house production and maintenance

Multilingual access and learning resources

BTSF course sections and Dissemination kit

The BTSF ACADEMY offers multilingual information and training materials, including:

  • Training presentations and additional documentation
  • Dissemination kits with editable files
  • Video recordings of the face-to-face sessions (restricted to officials, available on request)
  • Interactive eLearning courses, adapted for machine translation
  • Participants' forum in each course
  • Newsletters
  • Reports and statistics

BTSF ACADEMY Library

The library contains learning materials from BTSF training activities compiled into Dissemination Kits, including presentations, documents such as the course syllabus and agenda, and links to external resources. Its purpose is to help officials further disseminate accumulated knowledge and use the materials to develop additional training activities within their own services or for personal learning.

More details on how to see the Dissemination Kit view in other languages.

What you can do

  • Explore the content of a course, translated
  • Download both translated and original versions of presentations and documents
  • Compare formatting and meaning across versions
  • Build new training materials based on the translated resources, adapted to your needs/local conditions
  • Disseminate the acquired knowledge in further training events or online activities
  • Share the adapted material with others

Support for wider dissemination

BTSF encourages the further dissemination of available learning materials for training at national level, under Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise noted.

Benefits for non-EU countries

Fishing town illustration
  • Support fair trade
  • Enhance SPS regulatory cooperation
  • Help non-EU countries better understand and meet EU rules and standards
  • Reduce rejections at EU borders and facilitate access to the EU market
  • Contribute to a more diverse range of safe food products in the EU

Digital features

  • Training Management System for registration, applicant validation, training calendar and reporting
  • Centralised attendance registration and reporting
  • Digital self-registration using EU Login
  • Digitally signed PDF certificates

Need help?

For assistance with the BTSF ACADEMY: HaDEA-BTSF-ACADEMY-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu

To stay up-to-date with BTSF activities, subscribe to the BTSF Newsletter