The research project “The EU Role in Advancing One Health at Global and Regional Levels” will be led by the Module leader as Principal Investigator. The PI will foster partnerships and synergies with other research groups and ongoing international and national projects and networks.

The project will explore topical subjects in need of further reflection, related to the internal and external dimensions of the EU role in the promotion and implementation of the One Health approach for the prevention, detection and response to complex health challenges arising at the human-animal-environment interface. The emphasis will be on institutional, governance, policy, normative and substantive issues.

Moving from the consideration that One Health is a pillar of the new EU Global Health Strategy, the project will explore the role that the Union can play in promoting and advancing the application of this approach, focusing on the interaction between global and regional frameworks and exploring possible (actual and future) avenues of inter-institutional cooperation between the EU and the Quadripartite Coalition through new mechanisms and procedures for integrating EU Agencies in the joint activities of WHO – FAO – WOAH and UNEP). The project will also look at the “internal” dimension of inter-institutional cooperation for One Health implementation within the EU, with a special focus on the competences and mandate of the One Health Cross-Agency Task Force.

From a substantive point of view, the project will explore relevant regulatory frameworks and the several diverse fields of application that One Health covers, ranging from antimicrobial resistance to zoonotic diseases, from pathogen sharing to climate change, food safety and beyond. It will address in a systematic and holistic manner international sources and EU legislation on human health, animal health/welfare, environmental protection and food safety, also exploring multilevel regime interactions at both vertical (global/international-EU/regional-national) and horizontal (cross-sectoral) levels.

The results will be published open access in the form of either one edited book or a special issue of a legal journal.