Stakeholders

EFSA’s vision is “to optimise the health and well-being of domestic and wild animals”.

The main tasks and activities of EFSA’s Panel on Animal Health and Welfare and its supporting unit are:

• Collaborating with experts and Member States to lead risk assessment in the fields of animal health and animal welfare through a transparent and science-based approach.
• Recommending better standards to ensure the welfare of animals.
• Promoting standardised data collection related to animal health and animal welfare.
• Developing and assessing tools for the effective prevention and control of animal diseases.
• Networking with European and international partners on monitoring and surveillance of animal diseases.
• Reporting on surveillance activities carried out within the EU.

https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/animal-health

The thought behind forming this new Society arose from the successful European Concerted Research Action (COST 855) on Animal Chlamydioses and Zoonotic Implications that was funded by COST from 2003-2008, and the desire to keep together and build on the active and productive scientific community that arose from this Action in the form of biennial European meetings on animal and zoonotic aspects of chlamydial research (European Meetings on Animal Chlamydioses or EMAC).

The constitution of the Society was drafted by the group of scientists that were originally involved in the initiation, establishment and running of COST 855 and actively involved in subsequent EMAC meetings, and was presented to conference at the fourth EMAC meeting on 14 September 2017 that took place in Zagreb, Croatia and subsequently approved by the said scientists and ratified at the fifth EMAC meeting in Odessa, Ukraine on 4 October 2018. Council Office Bearers were elected by conference at this meeting.

https://www.um.es/esacz/index.html

https://www.um.es/esacz/council.html

Building on STAR-IDAZ, an International Research Consortium (IRC) of research funders and programme owners, aiming to maximise funding for coordinated animal health research.

The overall objective of the STAR-IDAZ IRC is to coordinate research at the international level to contribute to new and improved animal health strategies for at least 30 priority diseases/infections/issues.

The deliverables include:

• candidate vaccines, and/or
• diagnostics, and/or
• therapeutics and other animal health products, and/or
• procedures and/or
• key scientific information/tools to support risk analysis and disease control

https://www.star-idaz.net/

DISCONTOOLS identifies the gaps in knowledge to speed up the development of new DISease CONtrol TOOLS (diagnostics, vaccines and pharmaceuticals) and reduce the burden of animal diseases. This delivers benefits in terms of animal health and welfare, public health and a safe and secure food supply.

We provide information for 53 infectious diseases of animals and aim to keep the information updated (average of 5-year cycle). DISCONTOOLS is a key resource for the STAR-IDAZ International Research Consortium, as well as for other funders of animal health research including trusts and industry bodies.

Our mission is to be a critical resource for funders of animal health research including the European Commission, member states, foundations, trusts along with private industry to prioritise research.

We deliver on our mission by:

• Providing an open-access database with research gaps to improve infectious disease control in animals
• Supporting the development of strategic research agendas by public and industry bodies
• Communicating on the identified research gaps to animal health research decision makers, researchers, industry and students

Overall, this improves animal health and welfare and provides benefits in terms of public health and a safe and secure food supply.

DISCONTOOLS is funded by national funders of research from a range of countries with industry providing secretariat support.

https://www.discontools.eu/