Press release
Minister Heydon opens call for animal health research proposals
From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Published on
Last updated on
Martin Heydon, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with special responsibility for research and innovation, announced the opening of a call for research proposals in the area of animal health. The research call is being conducted by the European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) on International Coordination of Research on Infectious Animal Diseases (ICRAD).
The call has a particular focus on parasitic worms known as ‘helminths’. Resistant helminth populations are found in all grazing livestock species, and resistance has developed for all major classes of anthelmintic drugs. Current estimates show that helminth infections cost the European livestock industry more than €1.8 billion per year, with drug-resistance costing at least €38 million per year in production losses and treatment costs.
The goal of the research call is to mitigate the spread of anthelmintic resistance in livestock through further investigation of its detection, as well as natural, and vaccine induced protection.
Speaking on the opening of the call, Minister Heydon said:
"Parasitic infections in livestock are damaging from an animal health perspective which has a knock on impact on overall farm profitability. That is why funding has been made available for successful Irish researchers to participate in this European research call and collaborate with their peers to find improved ways of dealing with these parasitic worms."
The research call also includes scope for monitoring changes to the distribution of animal disease resulting from climate change, and modelling and forecasting the impacts of climate change on the spread of infectious livestock disease.
The ‘Helminth Infections and Changing Climate: Tackling the Challenges for Animal Health’ research Call will be funded by nine funders from eight European countries and total available funding amounts to €5.65 million, of which the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is committing €600,000.
1. The key mission of ICRAD is to support cross-cutting research to improve animal health and welfare, with associated benefits towards public health, the environment and the economy as well as to connect research partners with different but complimentary expertise in order to maximise resources and share costs, risks & skills.
2. This is the third ERA-NET ICRAD research Call for joint transnational projects on animal health and it will address ‘Helminth Infections and Changing Climate: Tackling the Challenges for Animal Health’.
3. Irish financial support is being provided through the DAFM Research Programme and the total public funding available to Irish RPOs in respect of this Call shall not be greater than €600,000, with maximum grant funding allowable per project of €300,000.
4. The research call is now open and further details can be found via the DAFM and ICRAD Websites:
5. The deadline for submission of applications is 1 June 2023.