Working Party on Advanced Education in Food Microbiology (WPAEFM)

The WPAEM (“Working Party on Advanced Education in Food Microbiology”): A “Task Force” representing 12 professors of 11 different countries (including USA and Canada) and a representative of UNESCO convened in Copenhagen from 6 to 9 June 1989, and prepared a first “Core Curriculum” for Advanced Education in Food Microbiology. This was published the following year in IJFM (4, 107-118). Useful deliberations on the first draft were initiated and chaired by Prof. David Mossel at the ICFMH in Bingen/Germany (1993) and Budapest (1996). Following the further development of the “Core curriculum”, a Master’s programme in “Public Health Science (Food and Drinking Water)” was initiated at the Dept. of Biosciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield Campus, Hatfield Herts (UK) in September 2003. This was endorsed at a former ICFMH-WPAEFM meeting during the “FOOD MICRO 2002” Symposium in Lillehammer, Norway, August 2002.

Presently, one of the essential targets of ICFMH is to work on harmonized curriculum for food microbiologists education. A WPAEFM inquiry in many countries has shown that, even in the EU member states, education and training in food microbiology are extremely unstructured and differ widely. The origins of this of lack of structure lie in the absence of a consensus, or even consultation, within scientific and professional circles concerning such curricula. For this reason, ICFMH, as the IUMS body of food microbiologists, felt obliged to work permanently on this issue. Consequently WPAEFM has been acting as platform for permanent discussion and structuring curricula towards harmonised set of tools to be used for discussions with relevant authorities, national bodies for food microbiology and those involved in academia.

Working Party on Advanced Education in Food Microbiology
The present conveners of the WPAEFM are Prof. Dr. Peter Raspor / Slovenia and ICFMH president Prof. dr. Andreja Rajkovic /Belgium.

The 1st WPAEFM symposium took place at the 24th International Conference of the ICFMH, Food Micro 2014 in Nantes (France). See programme and abstracts here.

The 2nd WPAEFM symposium “Food microbiology education in practice” will precede the 25th ICFMH Conference, FoodMicro 2016 Dublin, 19th July 2016 from 8:30 to 17:00. See the programme and abstracts (here).

The 3rd WPAEFM symposium took place on September 3rd, 2018 preceding the 26th International ICFMH Conference, FoodMicro 2018 in Berlin. See the programme and abstracts (here)

ICFMH is currently working on its education platform and the definition of its mission in it:

“Internationalization of higher education in domain of food microbiology is the intentional process of creating a global context of role of food microbiology in modern society and modern food systems by integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary research based education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society for a futureproof food supply. To achieve this ICFMH internationalization in education platform aims to work with partners in purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum in on campus and digital learning settings. Both internationalization@home and internationalization@away are aspects we address to provide internationalized learning outcomes in blended international and domestics learning environments. Key internationalization learning outcomes addressed are personal growth, intercultural competencies, language skills, international engagement in food and sustainability and international component of the knowledge of food microbiology and food safety. Global dispersion of ICFMH members and alumni is an asset to brings inherent internationalism. ” - ICFMH®.