The workshop, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, brought together 25 leaders from universities, government organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and industry to provide critical reviews for the UMETRICS approach to tracing inputs through outputs in research related to food safety. The UMETRICS approach draws from a variety of sources to describe what federally supported food safety research is being done, who is doing the research, and what results the funding has generated. 

During the workshop, attendees discussed food safety definitions, different ways of measuring food safety using text analysis, methods of identifying food safety businesses using industry classification and patent measures, and frameworks for identifying possible comparator groups.