Transnational access to leading European cattle research facilities in the EU project SmartCow

Theatre 2Newly-established EU Infrastructures project, SmartCow integrates leading European cattle research. Covering all the relevant scientific fields and the diversity of cattle types and production systems, . These are needed to develop innovative and ethical solutions for efficient use of animal and feed resources that promote animal welfare and healthy livestock, as well as sustainable competitiveness. At the networking level, SmartCow will allow better use of existing research infrastructures (RIs), and stimulate collaboration across research fields, production systems, and national borders. It will provide a system for harmonized and optimized transnational access (TNA) to state-of-the-art cattle RIs for any relevant scientific field and implement a TNA program that will address key European research challenges in a coordinated way. TNA funding will facilitate access to high-quality animal experimental facilities in other EU regions by funding costs for access to facilities and this will operate through managed grant funding calls. The objective will be to support high-quality research projects that address the most important challenges in European animal science. The TNA process will catalogue administrative and legal prerequisites at each partner institute, define and run funding calls, evaluate proposals, manage successful projects and review and refine operation of procedures. This second intervention of this session will present the TNA calls and processes for the potential users of the TNA