Over 60 researchers from 14 UAB departments are participating in the second round of activities of the European Partnership on Animal Health and Welfare (EUPAHW), which launched its 2026–2028 period recently. The UAB takes part in 17 of the 18 projects underway, demonstrating its expertise and cutting-edge research being conducted in animal health and welfare within the field of One Health.
The EUPAHW, a transnational consortium with 90 partners from 24 European countries, was launched in 2024 with a global investment of 360 million euros and a duration of seven years. Its objective is to generate knowledge and apply solutions that contribute to the one health, one welfare approach, as well as to the European policies on animal health and welfare through collaborations with scientific institutions, government agencies, and the productive sector.
The involvement of the UAB in this second round of scientific activities is much greater than in the first round (2024–2026), in which only four departments took part in eight of the 17 projects, with a total budge of 570,000 euros. The budget for the projects in this second round rises to almost three million euros.
"The UAB is one of the European universities with the greatest representation and involvement within the partnership, which demonstrates the importance of its positioning on a European and global scale as a leading university of excellence in animal health and welfare issues within the scope of one health", highlights Francesc Padrós, researcher at the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology and coordinator of the University in the EUPAHW.
The departments involved in the second round of activities at the EUPAHW are Computer Architecture and Operating Systems; Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology; Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Animal and Food Science; Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology; Philosophy; Animal Medicine and Surgery; Animal Health and Anatomy; Sociology; Applied Economics, and Genetics and Microbiology. The Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB-UAB) and the Institut de Neurociències (INc-UAB) also participate.
UAB research staff will take part in projects to improve the surveillance, assessment and monitoring of animal health and welfare, to provide new approaches when assessing the socioeconomic impact of diseases, and to create large knowledge platforms and databases to have better tools to support scientific, technical and political decisions in both areas.
