European Partnership Animal Health and Welfare, EUP AH&W

The European Partnership Animal Health & Welfare (EUP AH&W) will provide society with a sustainable production for both terrestrial and aquatic animals, where infectious animal diseases are prevented and controlled, antimicrobials are used prudently, and a high level of animal welfare is provided in every phase of animal’s life. The objectives of the EUP AH&W fit in with the European Green Deal and its associated Farm to Fork strategy for a fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly food system.

From its start, the EUP AH&W includes 56 Research Performing Organizations (RPO) and 30 Funding Organizations (FO) from 24 EU and non-EU European countries.

The RPO partners provide significant research-based advice to competent authorities in the EU and are the backbone of Animal Health & Welfare (AH&W) research in Europe. They collaborated to transpose 16 actions from the EUP Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (EUP SRIA) into 17 joint internal projects.

The FO partners will contribute through external calls to further research and innovation actions from the EUP SRIA not covered by internal activities as they require other expertise or industry participations.

Due to the close link between animal health and welfare and human well-being, the One Health - One Welfare perspective will take a prominent place in the EUP AH&W. The mobilisation of resources from both RPO and FO together with EC co-funding, will allow the Partnership to achieve ambitious goals for AH&W at the transnational level, in Europe and beyond.

New technologies develop rapidly and provide new R&I opportunities for AH&W, to be included in the EUP AH&W as joint internal activities and projects initiated through external calls. The management will set up appropriate procedures and methodologies to ensure a fair coverage of AH&W, of terrestrial and aquatic animal species, the various priority areas and to ensure the uptake of the results in the midterm (outcomes) and long term (impact) for science, society and policy.

As of August 2023, SVA has been granted a 2.092 million euro budget for the years 2024-2026. During the coming years more research activities will be announced and decided. 

Here are the Set of Activities (SOA) where SVA is contributing.

SOA 6, A European wildlife network for terrestrial and aquatic mammals and birds

SOA 7, Wildlife and diseases of aquatic organisms: A European perspective

SOA 8, Surveillance of pathogens of veterinary importance and their antimicrobial resistance profiles

SOA 10, Rapid Risk Assessment: Improvement of epidemic intelligence methodologies

SOA 11, KNOW-PATH - Knowledge on priority pathogens, infectious diseases and their detection methods

SOA 12, BETO - Better tools for diagnosis of infectious diseases
SOA 15, Biosecurity measures to prevent and control AID (animal infectious diseases) on farm and during transport taking into account effects on AW (animal wellfare)

SOA 18, Pathogen-microbiome interactions, immune system & mechanisms of AMR (antimicrobial resistance)

SOA 20, Study the role of the immune system of farm animals

SOA 21, Develop tools such as vaccine platforms and expression systems, immunological toolboxes and delivery system
SOA 22, Assess the economic and societal burden of selected priority diseases and production diseases