Anses (The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety) undertakes monitoring, expert assessment, research and reference activities in a broad range of topics that encompass human health, animal health and well-being, and plant health. It offers a cross-cutting perspective on health issues by assessing health risks and benefits, often through the prism of the human and social sciences. Its monitoring, vigilance and surveillance work provides input for risk assessment. 

The Agency also assesses the effectiveness and risks of veterinary medicinal products, plant protection products, fertilisers, growing media and their adjuvants, as well as biocides, with a view to delivering marketing authorisations.  It also provides assessments of chemicals within the framework of the European REACh regulations.

HAL- Anses is a self-archiving platform allowing for the filing and consultation of all of the scientific production produced by the Agency's researchers and scientific evaluators (excluding notices): this area includes "traditional" research materials (articles, communication concerning congresses, posters, research reports, etc.) as well as documents pertaining to the evaluation of risks, including the reports produced by Anses following the requests that it receives from its guardian ministries, from approved consumer organisations or from its own self-requests.
Moreover, all of the notices and reports produced by the Agency since it was created are now available on-line in full-text form on the Anses website.

The purpose of HAL-Anses is to:
- Optimise scientific and institutional visibility of Afssa and of its laboratories
- Ensure that the results of the Agency's research are distributed
- Ensure continuity for the data stored in the archive