Launching the European partnership One Health AMR
After years of preparation, the European One Health AMR partnership was officially launched in June 2025. The programme joins forces with 53 organisations from 30 countries to intensify the battle against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for the next 10 years.
Strengthening research and innovation
This European Partnership One Health Antimicrobial Resistance (EUP OHAMR) is part of the Horizon Europe programme. The goal of this partnership is to strengthen research into and innovation in tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) with the One Health approach integrating human beings, animals, food security and the environment. AMR is a global threat that requires urgent action: from understanding biological resistance mechanisms to developing new treatment options, faster diagnostics and more effective prevention measures.
Key points EUP OHAMR
- A 10-year programme (2025–2035) focusing on research, innovation and policy alignment.
- A budget of € 250 million available, including € 75 million of EU co-financing.
- An ambitious framework of programmes consisting of funding for Research & innovation projects, capacity building, knowledge sharing, using data and making impact.
- The Swedish Research Council coordinates this partnership.
- The goal is to develop treatment options that save lives and to reduce AMR globally.
- Contributing to the global Sustainable Development Goals and the European One Health Action Agenda against AMR .
- Building on the success of JPIAMR, which has invested more than € 180 million in AMR research since 2011.
What the partnership does
The partnership has been divided into 6 implementation programmes each lead by a partner organisation. This is how the partnership organises transnational calls for proposals for research and innovation. To strengthen their impact, the partnership organises training courses for more expertise and better cohesion in research methods.
The role of ZonMw
The impact is further strengthened by re-using and maximising the effect of existing data and sources for AMR research – and by making new data reusable. This work, which is included in implementation programme 5, will be carried out by ZonMw, in close collaboration with IACS (Spain), SNSF (Switzerland), KIT (The Netherlands), HLSC (Bulgaria) and SRC (Sweden). What’s more, ZonMw hosts the secretariat for implementation programme 1 which is the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of this European partnership. Finally, ZonMw will also take part in transnational calls for proposals.
The kick-off meeting and FAIR awareness session
On 22 and 23 September 2025 all partners of the EUP OHAMR partnership came to Brussels to meet in person for the first time. More than 100 participants attended the launch, including representatives of the European Commission.
After the General Assembly on the first day, it was up to ZonMw to kick off implementation programme 5 on the second day with a FAIR awareness session for all partners. Linda van Gaalen (ZonMw) moderated the session which began by sketching a picture of the current situation. Within the field of AMR we have vast datasets and plenty of data available. Every research project is essentially also about data management, but there are no standards yet. The data are stored in many different places and methods are standardised. So there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to handling AMR-related data. This is precisely what implementation programme 5 will contribute to this partnership.
It turned out to be very valuable to bring this important topic to the attention of all the partners so soon after the official kick-off of this partnership in this FAIR awareness session. There was growing understanding for the work included in this implementation programme, what is needed to perform these tasks and the key role that partners are playing in this. Furthermore, the session and the discussion afterwards made it clear that together we already know a great deal about this field. However, the need to keep talking to each other to make sure that we speak – and continue to speak – the same language was also an important conclusion of this session.
A brief overview of the FAIR awareness session
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A survey conducted by ZonMw with questions about data management showed that the EUP OHAMR partners find data management very important, and that they are aware of the FAIR principles. However, it was unclear to some partners what this would mean concretely and practically for the partnership. They asked questions about their role of funding the projects within this partnership.
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Erik Schultes introduced his audience to the world of FAIR data. What does FAIR mean, what does FAIR add to the current issues, and what are the possibilities and opportunities if the data are FAIR, or in other words Fully AI Ready? The presentation by Erik Schultes was positively received and made things clearer for many of the partners about what is intended by this implementation programme and why this is important in the long term.
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Reusing data was also encouraged by Europe, including the rules of the game. Within this context, Sarah Delacour Estrella shed light on the Data Act and the European Health Data Space (EHDS), which is a shared space to store health data in the European Union.
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Dimitar Dimitrov gave a presentation about how we can benefit from reused data and what the role of AI can be in this. He also paid attention to the importance of data stewards in this context, who play a key role in making the data FAIR and in supporting researchers.
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Margreet Bloemers introduced the role of implementation programme 5 at the end of this session. She discussed the responsibilities, goals and envisaged results within this partnership. Apart from building a community, implementation programme 5 focuses on encouraging the reuse of existing data and expertise in order to prevent everyone needing to reinvent the wheel.
External kick-off meeting
After the FAIR awareness session, an external kick-off meeting was held for all relevant stakeholders. View the EUP OHAMR kick-off in Brussels here.