The European Partnership on Animal Health and Welfare (EUP AH&W), coordinated by the University of Gent, Belgium, was launched this year (https://eupahw.eu/). The partnership aims to control infectious animal diseases and promote animal welfare, and boosts research and cooperation between actors with 50% of the budget funded by Horizon Europe, and 50% by the partner institutions. The Partnership started in January 2024 with 17 joint internal 3-year research projects (or Set of Activities; SOA’s). One of these joint internal research projects is entitled “Assessment of positive welfare; defining animal-based measures” (SOA13).
It is exciting that Positive Animal Welfare is in the forefront of the partnership with one of the very first joint internal projects. SOA13 aims to identify and validate animal-based measures of positive animal welfare in farmed poultry, pigs and ruminants, in three steps: 1) set the scene by creating an overview of potential indicators of positive affect with their level of validation, 2) strengthen existing tools by empirically validating these potential indicators, and 3) move this work to practice by proposing how validated indicators may be used to assess positive welfare on farm in the future.
The aims of the partnership align perfectly with LIFT aims and several bridges for cross-fostering between the two projects are identified. While LIFT is a network project carrying out theoretical research, SOA13 also coordinates and cooperates on empirical research. LIFT provides a tremendous support for SOA13, which has the potential to further the ideas developed in LIFT. It is our hope that together, LIFT and SOA13 can pave the way towards a substantial improvement in farm animal welfare
By Margit Bak Jensen and Laura Webb
Chair and Co-chair of LIFT
