EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for “Additional activities for the European partnership on animal health and welfare” (HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-02)

1. Single Market Access

• 450 + million consumers & 10+ million farms: Innovations (vaccines, diagnostics, welfare monitoring tools) can be commercialised or rolled out across the entire EU without facing tariff or customs barriers.

• Harmonised marketing authorisations (e.g., EU Veterinary Medicinal Products Regulation 2019/6) reduce time-to-market vs. 27 separate national procedures.

• Public procurement leverage: Common EU animal-welfare standards (Transport, Slaughter, Organic, etc.) enable suppliers to bid for large cross-border contracts once compliance is proven.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Multi-national consortia: Partnership statutes oblige members to pool national/regional programme budgets → bigger joint calls (EUR 400–500 m over lifetime realistic) that individual countries could not finance alone.

• Epidemiological reach: Transboundary diseases (ASF, AI, LSD) require data & intervention coordination beyond borders; the grant formalises shared surveillance platforms and rapid-response protocols.

• Mobility & training: Researchers, veterinarians and PhD candidates benefit from MSCA-style exchanges, COST-like networks and joint summer schools, accelerating capacity building in widening countries.

3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies

| EU Strategy | Direct Contribution of the Partnership |

|-------------|-----------------------------------------|

| European Green Deal | Reduced GHG & ammonia from livestock via better health → lower antibiotic production emissions; higher welfare linked to sustainable diets. |

| Farm to Fork (F2F) | Delivers F2F targets of –50 % antimicrobial sales & higher welfare labelling uptake. |

| One Health / AMR Action Plan | Co-funded calls on alternatives to antimicrobials and zoonotic risk modelling. |

| Digital Europe & Data Act | Creation of interoperable e-health platforms for animals; compliance with common European agricultural data space. |

| Biodiversity Strategy | Healthier livestock lower pressure on wildlife disease reservoirs. |

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Single “rule-book” for animal health (EU Animal Health Law 2016/429) and welfare allows research protocols and field trials to be replicated in any Member State without redesign.

• Ethical approval mutual recognition cuts administrative cost ~30 %.

• Standardised metrics (e.g., AWIN indicators) mean project outputs are immediately eligible for EFSA risk assessments and can feed into delegated acts.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• 3,400+ agri-food SMEs, 400+ universities & 100+ living labs in the EIT Food, EIP-AGRI and Regional Innovation Valleys can onboard as third parties through the EUR 10 m FSTP ceiling.

• Synergies with other Partnerships: Agroecology, Sustainable Food Systems, Data4Agriculture → shared infrastructures (e.g., phenotyping platforms, sensor networks) and cost-efficient trials.

• Alignment with EU Missions (Soil, Ocean & Waters) provides visibility and opens additional top-up funding under Mission Work Programmes.

6. Funding Synergies & Leverage

• 50 % EU co-funding rate doubles national budgets; leveraging EUR 1 EU triggers EUR 1 national/regional.

• Cascading grants (FSTP): up to EUR 10 m per third party enables flagship demonstration farms or multi-country vaccine trials.

• Blending possible with:

• CAP Strategic Plans (eco-schemes for welfare improvements)

• LIFE (biodiversity & zoonoses interface)

• Digital Europe (super-computing for disease modelling)

• InvestEU Agri-food window (scale-up loans for spin-offs)

7. Scale & Impact Potential

• Pan-European datasets (~1 bn animal records/year) underpin AI tools with statistical power unattainable nationally.

• Rapid deployment pathways: once a solution secures EFSA/EMA scientific opinion, mutual recognition enables simultaneous market entry in 27 MS → payback periods shorten.

• Policy influence: Partnership outputs feed directly into Commission delegated acts and CAP conditionality revisions, amplifying impact beyond project lifetime.

8. Strategic Value of EU-Level Operation

1. Critical mass: Concentrated financial and intellectual resources tackle high-risk, high-cost challenges (e.g., novel vaccines) that single countries cannot cover.

2. Resilience: Coordinated surveillance & contingency planning mitigate transboundary disease shocks, safeguarding EU food security.

3. Global leadership: Joint EU standards and validated welfare metrics set benchmarks for WTO/OIE negotiations, strengthening EU agri-food export competitiveness.

4. Inclusiveness: Mandatory inclusion of new MS/Associated Countries spreads excellence, reduces R&I divide and supports forthcoming enlargement.

9. Actionable Opportunities for Applicants

• Bring in missing countries (e.g., BG, RO, MT, LV) to unlock their ERA-NET-style budgets and boost evaluation scores for relevance & inclusiveness.

• Design at least two joint calls:

• Call 1 (2026): “Digital early-warning & decision-support tools” – TRL 5→7.

• Call 2 (2027): “Alternatives to antimicrobials & welfare-based production systems” – integrate SMEs & demonstration farms.

• Create an EU Animal-Health Data Space pilot aligned with the forthcoming Agriculture Data Space to benefit from Digital Europe synergies.

• Set up a ‘Policy Impact Board’ with DG SANTE, DG AGRI, EFSA & EMA to fast-track regulatory uptake of results.

• Leverage FSTP for Living Labs in at least 12 Member States to test welfare innovations under diverse agro-ecological zones.

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Bottom Line: Operating this partnership at EU scale multiplies resources, removes market and regulatory fragmentation, and positions Europe as the global leader in sustainable, high-welfare animal production while directly supporting key EU policy agendas.