PIGWEB aims to strengthen the pig research community by providing and facilitating access to research infrastructures (RI), reinforce the culture of cooperation between the research community and industrial and societal stakeholders, and improve and integrate the services provided by the RI. This will contribute to develop innovative and ethical solutions for sustainable pig production systems.
PIGWEB fully embraces the European Green Deal to make Europe world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The strategy is to protect, conserve and enhance the environment, protect the health and well-being of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts. Research infrastructures like PIGWEB will play a key role in identifying the levers that can be used to attain the goals of the Green Deal to produce safe, nutritious, high-quality food with a minimum impact on nature, and also address citizens’ concerns about the welfare of farmed animals. PIGWEB contributes to all of these aspects by a “Pig to Pork” approach to provide:
Transnational access (TNA) to:
i) Ensure easy and transparent access to 28 experimental pig RI and associated laboratories in nine countries.
Networking Activities (NA) to:
ii) Create a community of pig RI by mapping installations beyond the partners of the project and identifying future research needs in the pig production sector.
iii) Harmonise protocols, best practices, and promote the use of standards to ensure high levels of expertise and ethics.
iv) Organise the collection, management, and accessibility of data generated by the project.
v) Ensure dissemination, exploitation, and technology transfer of results generated by the project.
vi) Provide graduate and post-graduate training opportunities to early-career scientists to ensure the succession of a new generation of highly trained experts in the fields of pig production.
Joint Research Activities (JRA) to:
vii) Develop non- or minimally invasive methods for digestion studies and blood sampling to replace current procedures requiring surgery and invasive sampling, isolation, fixation and/or spatial restrictions of pigs.
viii) Develop novel methods, tools, and technologies that provide indicators of welfare, behaviour, and body composition.
ix) Develop a research toolbox to phenotype pigs for traits relevant for sustainable pig production, using data obtained through non- or minimally invasive measurements and model algorithms.
