Abstract: Risk assessment constitutes an important part in legally controlling of environmental release of transgenic organisms and is a core subject in biosafety research. The paper dealt with the description of the principles and general risk assessment model for the environmental release of transgenic organisms on the basis of analysing and comparing the various methods on risk assessment, in combination with the past research results of the authors. The model includes three stages from hazard identification, risk estimate through risk evaluation, which can be divided into seven steps.

Key words: transgenic organism, environmental release, risk assessment, principle, model