EU-24018 Management Team and coordination activities for the EU Partnership on Animal Health & Welfare (EUP AH&W (KB-50-008-018)

European Partnerships are new research funding instruments and part of Horizon Europe Framework Programme. Partnerships aim to identify research priorities of individual EU Member States, include them in one overarching research program organised by the European Commission, and jointly fund the projects in a Partnership.
The European Partnership Animal Health & Welfare (EUP AH&W) started on 1 January 2024. It aims to 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 throughout the animal’s life. The EUP AH&W includes 56 Research Performing Organizations (RPO) and 30 Funding Organizations (FO) from 24 EU and non-EU European countries. The budget raised by the Funders, the EC and own contributions from RPOs is nearly 120 million euro for the first 5 years.
The Partnership will involve Internal and External projects. The first External projects will likely start in the middle of 2025. The Internal projects (or Set of Activities or SOAs) have started on 1 January 2024. In this first round there are 17 internal projects, and Wageningen Research is participating in several of them. These projects (SOAs) are described in separate application forms. An additional 5 SOAs involve the leadership of the Partnerships five Work Packages.
This cofinancing application supports the leading role of Wageningen Research in the Partnership. WLR (Hans Spoolder) is member of the Management Team (SOA1), and co-supervises WP2 (SOA2) which develops and monitors the Partnerships Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). WLR also supplies the project office support for this WP, through a project Office Manager (to be appointed). WBVR (Barry Rockx) is in the WP3 (SOA3) coordinating team that organises the Internal research projects. The main deliverable of these two coordinators is a very close connection between the policies of the Ministry of LNV and the strategic interests of WBVR and WLR, with the possibilities in this huge funding instrument.