• H2020
• Societal Challenges
• Health

An international research consortium on animal health is to launch tomorrow at the conference ‘Designing the path: A strategic approach to EU agricultural research and innovation’.

The initiative sees 14 organisations from 11 countries commit to a joint investment of approximately €1bn over the next five years as part of a new effort to co-ordinate animal health research worldwide.

Partners include research funders and programme owners from Europe, Asia, Australasia, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, as well as international organisations and representatives of veterinary pharmaceutical companies. More are expected to join in the following months.

The consortium builds on several years of research networking supported by the EU and aims to deliver measureable progress in the control of animal diseases through the alignment of both public and privately funded animal health research programmes around the world.

Partners have agreed to co-ordinate their research programmes to address agreed research needs, share results and together deliver new and improved animal health strategies for at least 30 priority diseases, infections or issues. This includes candidate vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and other animal health products, procedures and/or key scientific information and tools to support risk analysis and disease control.

In line with these aims, working groups consisting of researchers will be established for each of the priority topics and receive guidance from a scientific committee. Each group will perform research gap analyses. The scientific committee, comprising independent experts, will present the gap analyses to the consortium partners and advise them on how their programmes might be aligned.

A scientific secretariat will be established to provide the working groups with literature reviews and support them in their gap analyses, support the scientific and executive committees logistically, and facilitate information exchange within and between all three levels.

Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan, director general of the World Organisation for Animal Health Monique Eloit, and Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific advisor for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, are expected to speak at the launch event, which will take place tomorrow at 13.15 CET in the Charlemagne building, Brussels.