28.02.2024.
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), as a leading EU body in science, research, and technology, is supporting a range of projects and training of researchers active on those projects. On February 21st and 22nd, COST Academy organized a Science Communication Training for newly elected Science Communication Coordinators of active COST Actions CA22112 European Network on Livestock Phenomics - EU-LI-PHE.
As animal breeding relies on the availability of accurate and specific phenotype data to reach its goals, phenotyping is increasingly being recognised as a limiting factor in all applications of livestock genetics and genomics. The acquisition of relevant phenotypes is also fundamental to routine and daily management of livestock populations in order to optimise reproduction strategies, disease control and welfare of the animals. Consequently, this knowledge gap needs to be filled to facilitate long-term improvement and a sustainable landscape for livestock production. Phenomics is emerging as a major new technical discipline in biology. Phenomics is focused on one major aim: to systematically describe the phenome, referred to as the physical and molecular traits of an organism. This discipline can be defined as the ensemble of methodologies and technologies for the acquisition, analysis and exploitation of high-dimensional phenotypic data on an organism-wide scale.
Our Scientific Associate, Dr. Adna Ašić, participated in the training, representing Verlab Institute, as the only trainee from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Adna is a Science Communication Coordinator in COST Action CA22112. During the training, the attendees learnt how to effectively engage with their target audiences through the website, social media, newsletters and flyers, and how to organize and implement more elaborate dissemination and communication channels, such as conferences and textbooks. In this training, Adna gained a lot of valuable experience and skills from highly experienced EU professionals, who have decades of experience in managing and promoting research projects.
EU-LI-PHE has created a multidisciplinary, interconnected and inclusive community of experts focused on Europe that enhances scientific cooperation, catalyzes the development and transfer of concepts and applications of livestock phenomena to improve the sustainability and competitiveness of the European livestock production sector. The activity will provide i) an overview of phenotyping technologies and infrastructure for application in livestock phenomenology, ii) approaches and methods for integrating genomes into phenomenology in livestock species, iii) computational resources and data analysis methods required for this big data discipline, iv) regulatory framework and a social vision of the livestock phenomenon and v) a training environment for the benefit of the next generation of researchers in this field.
