The 10th Steering Committee meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium, on 25 September 2008.

Future Structure of BIOTRACER
The first order of business was to discuss the new structure of BIOTRACER starting in Month 31 of the project. The graphic to the right shows the adjustment of Work Packages and the shifting of work into fewer Work Packages. The Steering Committee unanimously agreed to the new structure. The new structure was based on comments from the EC Reviewers at the Prague meeting and recommendations from the International Advisory Board during the Dublin meeting. The result will create a focus on ‘full biotraceability' in chains-Salmonella in pork, Salmonella in feed and S. aureas in dairy.

3rd Implementation Plan
Along with the new structure came a discussion of developing the 3rd Implementation Plan for BIOTRACER (Months 25-42). The Steering Committee agreed to use a new task template to describe the work to be done. Participants will receive the task template after the Logical Framework is drafted by Work Package Leaders in November.

New Satellite Tasks
As you are reading this newsletter, some of your colleagues are writing task descriptions for new Satellite Tasks. The Steering Committee approved the plan/timeline for new Satellite Tasks. A call for proposals was made in mid-October for the two-round process. Those proposals that cleared the first-round screening by the Steering Committee were asked to write a task description by the beginning of December. The International Advisory Board will evaluate the second-round proposals, and the Steering Committee will announce their decision in the beginning of 2009.

Demonstration Activities
The Steering Committee approved the budget framework for two demonstration activities: one for the lab-on-a-chip and Campylobacter in chicken, and the other for the HUGIN tool and IFR.

Sampling Plans
Martin Wagner presented the sampling plans he had received. The Steering Committee gave Martin the authority to finalize the sampling plans for the three chains (Salmonella in pork, Salmonella in feed and S. aureas in dairy). The sampling plans, which have been reviewed by appropriate modeling personnel, will be posted on the e-management tool soon.

Beyond BIOTRACER
The Steering Committee approved the use of funds to support efforts to reach beyond the BIOTRACER Consortium and build synergy with other traceability projects. BIOTRACER will offer travel grants to participants/stakeholders of other traceability projects to attend BIOTRACER workshops. BIOTRACER will also fund Mobility Programmes for BIOTRACER participants to go to partners of other traceability projects. This will be launched in 2009.

The Steering Committee is scheduled to meet again during the EC Review Meeting, 23 March 2009, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.