Ireland launches €4.3 million cross-border projects to accelerate pandemic readiness and environmental goals

Four new research initiatives, backed by €4.3 million, aim to enhance disease surveillance, animal health, and environmental sustainability across Ireland, bringing together key institutions in a bid to lead future innovations.

Scientists in Ireland are launching four cross-border research projects designed to strengthen pandemic preparedness, improve bovine tuberculosis control and cut methane from cattle, in work backed by about €4.3 million. The programmes bring together the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland with partners including Teagasc, Queen’s University Belfast, University College Dublin and Technological University Dublin.

One strand, ALLIES-Z-Path, will focus on emerging infections that can move from animals to people, including bird flu, swine flu and vector-borne viruses such as West Nile and tick-borne encephalitis. AFBI’s Professor Louise Cosby said the aim was to make the island of Ireland a leader in future pandemic readiness through stronger surveillance, testing and co-operation.

A second project, bovisSNP, will use genetic analysis and cattle movement data to understand how bTB spreads and why it persists. AFBI bacteriology scientist Dr Adrian Allen said it should deliver evidence-based recommendations to support eradication plans.

SENTINEL will apply artificial intelligence to existing and new data, including text and images, to improve early warning for exotic and re-emerging diseases.

The fourth project, RU-MIT-LESS, will test methane-reducing feed additives and measurement tools across grazing and housed systems, building on AFBI’s wider methane research and planned emissions facility at Hillsborough.

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