In June 2025, Irene Camerlink, based in Poland, visited Suzanne Truong in Melbourne, Australia for a STSM. A trip to Melbourne was planned for an invited lecture at the National Animal Welfare RD&E Strategy Forum, organised by Drs Megan Lucas and Jeremy Skuse. To make optimum use of this opportunity, the visit was extended with 9 days into a STSM to work on several tasks for WGs.
The visit started with a 2-day trip to the University of Tasmania, hosted by Dr Megan Verdon. This was an ideal opportunity to speak about the latest research directions and see some of the research that is currently being done, such as virtual fencing for cattle. The days afterwards in Melbourne were filled with in total four presentations by the STSM awardee. First, a talk on environmental enrichment for pigs was presented at a seminar on enrichment for zoo and farm animals. There were around 50 participants, and this was an ideal opportunity to meet researchers based in Melbourne and surroundings. On the 17th of June the National Animal Welfare RD&E Strategy Forum took place, where Irene gave a plenary talk. The Forum had around 60 in-person attendees and ca. 150 online registrants. Researchers from across Australia joined the meeting, which gave an unexpected chance to meet many animal welfare researchers in person.The presentation has been recorded and is uploaded on the NAWRDES website https://www.awstrategy.net/forum.html. The following day, Irene gave a short presentation about COST Action LIFT to the National Animal Welfare RD&E Strategy group, which included researchers, industry and government representatives.
The remaining days were spent on working with Suzanne Truong (and LIFT member Mark Learmonth) on various LIFT activities, such as a PAW podcast series and activities of the Inclusiveness committee. One result of that is the initiation of the mentoring scheme, which has now coupled 19 early career researchers to mentors from within LIFT. Lastly, a visit was made to Melbourne Zoo and to a pig farm with around 8000 sows. At the farm, Irene presented to the farm staff about free farrowing systems for sows and aspects to consider before deciding on the type of system. The pig farm visit was especially a useful aspect of the trip, both for gaining experience and for sharing knowledge with pig producers.
