6-8 February 2012 , New Delhi
The UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Government of India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT), organised a joint UK-India workshop to scope potential areas of research collaboration in the area of livestock health and research.
This workshop follows a very successful BBSRC -DBT workshop on bioenergy research, held in New Delhi in October 2011, which led to the
announcement of plans for a £10M joint call for sustainable bioenergy research between the UK and India.
For this second workshop, RCUK India, working closely with BBSRC, DBT and the UK’s Science Innovation Network; facilitated discussions between senior members of the UK and Indian livestock research communities to explore possible areas of collaboration.
The joint UK- India workshop was held between 6 and 8 February, at the
National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi. Dr Chandrima Shaha, Director NII addressed the participants with an introductory speech providing an overview of NII and its activities.
Dr Lesley Heppell, Head of Bioscience Underpinning Health Sector at BBSRC, and Dr Sadhana Sharma, Strategy and Policy Manager at BBSRC provided an overview of BBSRC animal health and welfare research.
Dr George John, Adviser at DBT provided an introduction to DBT’s activities in India highlighting its work in livestock health and disease research.
Prior to commencing scoping discussions to extract potential joint research areas, representatives from each delegation provided an overview of the livestock research landscapes in both UK and India across the following seven themes:
- Infectious animal diseases: Food-borne zoonoses and Bacterial endemic diseases
- Infectious animal diseases: Viral & Vector-borne diseases
- Infectious animal diseases: Parasitic
- Transmission and Epidemiology
- Genetics of livestock health
- Gut Health
- Cross cutting themes: Cross cutting issues – Immunology, Vaccinology and Diagnostics
(Presentations from landscape sessions available upon request to rcuk.india@rcuk.ac.uk)
Dr Alex Morrow from the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) also presented an overview of STAR-IDAZ: Global Network for Animal Disease Research. Both BBSRC and DBT are participants in this global project.
All delegates reconvened on the second day to discuss current strengths and gaps in livestock research in both the UK and India. Working in groups, the delegates identified priority research themes where, by working together, UK and Indian scientists would be able to achieve significantly more than they could do alone.
The two funding agencies, BBSRC and DBT, are currently in discussions about next steps which will be announced shortly.
In order to provide the visiting UK delegation a clearer understanding of India’s livestock research, DBT organised a site-visit to the
Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly.
A detailed programme for the workshop is available here 
.
The final workshop report is available here .
Biographies for participants are available here:
UK delegates
Indian delegates
Images: Break-out group discussions at the workshop
