Europe joins forces in Vienna to combat antimicrobial resistance
The annual meeting of the European Partnership on One Health AMR (EUP OHAMR) took place in Vienna this year. A total of 53 partners from 30 countries gathered at the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) to join forces on international One Health research and innovation in the field of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The ZonMw team kicked off on 24 March with the first in-person meeting of the recently established Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), for which it hosts the secretariat. Although this group of scientists has not known each other for long, the meeting was a great success, characterised by infectious energy and active participation. There was extensive discussion of scientific challenges in the field of AMR, which could lead to topics within the 3 focus areas for new calls for proposals within the partnership’s Joint Transnational Calls.
Chairs of the SAB and Strategic Board officially installed
The second in-person General Assembly meeting started on 25 March with a session on the role of the social sciences in the field of AMR. Several SAB members gave presentations, including Mohamed Elhadidy, who highlighted the value of international cooperation and the EUP OHAMR: ‘No one is safe from AMR until we are all safe.’ In the subsequent panel discussion, it was emphasised that data continuity is essential, as is the sharing of existing data. In various breakout rooms, participants explored global challenges, implementation, innovation, and socio-economic factors in greater depth, and how the partnership can integrate these topics.
The agenda of the closed General Assembly meeting focused primarily on aligning the various activities as a new partnership. A key point is ensuring that activities within the work packages are aligned and that they work more closely together to prevent overlap and maximise impact. An update was also provided on the upcoming international call for proposals later this year. Preparations are in full swing and further information will follow. Finally, the Chairs of the SAB and the Strategic Board were officially installed. The Netherlands is represented by Jaap Wagenaar as Chair of the SAB and Sjaak de Gouw as Chair of the Strategic Board. Read more about the partnership’s governance structure here.
Maximising data reuse
Following the second part of the General Assembly meeting, Work Package 5 (WP5) organised the lunch-to-lunch expert consultation on 26 and 27 March. The theme ‘data’ was discussed at length during this consultation. The aim was to review WP5’s plans regarding data reuse within the partnership: are we on the right track, are we doing the right things, and are we doing them in the right way? These questions were asked to a wide range of experts who work with or on data in various capacities.
The WP5 working group gathered a lot of valuable input and took an important step towards forming a community with this enthusiastic group of experts. The WP5 working group will now focus on interpreting all the input and incorporating it into the work plan for the coming years. This forms the basis for maximising the reuse of data from the EUP OHAMR funded projects.
After this intensive week, we as the programme team are tired, but we look back on it positively. It was exhausting to work and meet intensively for 4 days, but fortunately there is Austrian chocolate as a remedy!