Boosting the One Health Research Excellence and Management Capacity of the Estonian University of Life Sciences (OH-Boost)

The aim of the OH-Boost project is to increase the research and innovation excellence as well as the management and administrative capacities of the Estonian University of Life Sciences (EMU, with a focus on the Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences) in the field of One Health. One Health is an increasingly important research domain, focused on different dimensions of how human, animal and environmental health are inseparably linked. Its core lies in the understanding that humans and animals share the essentials of life: the genome, disease-causing organisms, health, welfare and the environment and ecological ecosystem that affects both humans and animals. Already having in place strong preconditions to conduct excellent research in the field (previous research, infrastructure and equipment), EMU now seeks to advance its knowledge and skills in One Health and ultimately become one of the most acknowledged research organizations in the field in Europe and worldwide. As one of the means to move towards this goal, EMU will team up with two of the leading universities in the related fields of One Health – the University of Helsinki (UH) and the University of Milan (UniMi). The University of Tartu (UT) will also join the project as EMU’s long-term local cooperation partner who offers human health expertise to support EMU’s expertise in animal health and the environment so that One Health topic are explored from a multidisciplinary and holistic perspective. The OH-Boost project seeks to combine EMU’s and UT’s competences to strengthen One Health research in Estonia, mentored by UH and UniMi. This includes knowledge transfer and capacity-raising activities as well as joint efforts to increase EMU’s research profile and international visibility.