European Partnership on Animal Health and Welfare

Lead institution
Ghent University (UGent)

Deputy Lead institution
Ghent University (UGent)

Partner participation in WP1
ANSES, AU, Sciensano, WR

Work package Summary
WP1 oversees coordination, growth, and long-term planning of the Partnership. It sets up and supports the overall Partnership governance that involves various decision bodies like the Management Team, Executive Board, General Assembly and Governing Board. The Management Team leads daily operations, considering inputs from other bodies. Other advisory bodies support the partnership work, like the Scientific Advisory Board, the Stakeholder Committee and the Ethics Advisory Board.

Work Package objectives
The overall aim of WP1 is to ensure the efficient and transparent implementation of the partnership. The objectives of WP1 are:

• To carry out the EC contractual obligations regarding legal, financial and administrative management and coordination of the partnership
• To enable adequate coordination and communication between the WP leads in the Executive Board with the Governing Board, and between the partnership and the external Stakeholders, Scientific and Ethics Advisory Boards
• To ensure an efficient project management and risk assessment related to the partnership implementation
• To ensure an efficient liaison with the EC
• To safeguard appropriate data management and compliance of the partnership with the EC’s Open Access policy
• To set up expert task force groups for selected scientific/technical domains.

Lead institution
Sciensano, the Belgian institute for Health

Deputy Lead institution
Wageningen Research, NL

Partner participation in WP2
ANSES, EFSA, EMA, UGent and MASAF

Work package Summary
Work Package 2 manages and updates the AH&W Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, which is a document describing the actions or areas on which activities such as research, reference tasks or capacity building etc. will be built. The actions are assessed for their scientific, strategic, societal, economic and policy relevance by the Scientific Advisory Board and the Stakeholder Committee, who also provide comments and recommendations. Subsequently, the funding agencies and research institutions decide whether the actions can feed into the internal programme or into the external research calls, depending on the available relevant expertise of the EUP partners. The work package also monitors the progress and impact of the partnership’s results on health and welfare in European livestock production, as well as any autonomous development that may affect the need to develop new research. Finally, the team manages the updating of the SRIA, in line with the epidemiological situation, emerging welfare issues, new technologies or legislation, etc.

Work package objectives
One aim of this work package is to organise the implementation of the Partnership’s SRIA and its evolution. The team will:

1. Assist the Governing Board in selecting the actions for the subsequent internal programme or the next external research call
2. Monitor the progress and the effect (midterm outcomes and long-term impact) of the internal and external projects (and therefore of the Partnership)
3. Completely or partially update the EUP SRIA when necessary.

Lead institution
Aarhus University Denmark

Deputy Lead institution
ANSES France

Partner participation in WP3
AU, ANSES, UCPH, WR, INRAE

WP3 Management Team
Jan Tind Sørensen AU WP-Lead
Florece Tardy ANSES WP-Deputy lead
Alain Boissy INRAE
Søren Saxmose Nielsen UCPH
Wim van der Poel WR
Barry Rockx WR

Work package Summary
WP3 develops, executes and monitors the Joint Integrative Projects (JIPs), i.e. internal sets of activities of the EUP AH&W. Actions selected by WP2 from the EUP SRIA to be executed internally are transposed into JIPs in close collaboration with the member RPOs in a process which involves consultations with the Scientific Advisory Board and the Stakeholder Committee. Member and candidate RPOs are invited to join working groups that each will develop activities based on a JIP outline and an indicative budget frame.

Workpackage objectives

• To update activities for Years 2 and 3 for the 17 JIPs initiated in 2024
• To transpose selected actions from the EUP SRIA into JIPs outlines
• To organise invitations to RPOs to join and propose JIPs. - To oversee revisions of proposed JIP
• To execute and to monitor the progress of JIPs. Develop a detailed Plan for Communication.

Lead institution
The Technological and Scientific Research Council of Turkiye (TUBITAK)

Deputy Lead institution
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)

Partner participation in WP4
DEFRA, MINLNV, AEI-FECYT, BLE, EMA

Work package Summary
WP4 manages and coordinates the implementation, evaluation and selection of external R&I calls and the monitoring of the international R&I projects. WP4 will establish an international pool of experts to evaluate proposals and work together with EMA to monitor the funded projects for each call.

Workpackage objectives
The objectives of WP4 are:

• To ensure the mitigation of CoI with other WPs and inside WP4
• To draft and prepare the research call documents
• To launch the external research calls
• To organise and conduct the evaluation of external pre- and full-proposals and organise evaluation meetings
• To organise selection of the external pre- and full-proposals with funder organisations
• To monitor the funded R&I projects via midterm and final reports and assess the impact
• To organise kick-off, mid-term and final meetings of the funded projects
• To prepare lessons learned report.

Lead institution
Germany Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR)

Deputy Lead institution
University of Surrey (Surrey)

Partner participation in WP5
IZS Teramo, Unimi, IZLER, SSI, WU, APHA, EFSA, EMA

Work package Summary
WP5 aims to implement measures for Communication, Exploitation, Education and Dissemination (CEED). It will support internal communication between the EUP AH&W members. WP5 will also facilitate outreach to a wide range of key actors and stakeholders, maximising the uptake and impact of the outcomes of the internal and external projects of EUP AH&W, based on its Key Exploitable Results (KERs), and thus strengthening European collaboration in achieving scientific excellence in the related domains.

Workpackage objectives

• Develop a detailed Plan for Communication, Exploitation, Education and Dissemination (PCEED), that sets out the strategy, with a timeline, implementation plan, monitoring plan and evaluation criteria (indicators)
• Develop and perform communication and dissemination activities and other measures to the target audiences
• Maximise the dissemination and utilisation of Key Exploitable Results (KERs) and outputs of the EUP AH&W, through cooperation and networking activities and regular exchanges with a wide range of key actors, stakeholders and related initiatives
• Develop and carry out exploitation activities considering the management of IPR, to facilitate further research, the (commercial) exploitation of project results
• Develop and deliver innovative education and training activities to train the Animal Health and Welfare (AH&W) scientists of the future
• Raise societal awareness on the partnership, its outcomes and AH&W.