Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Martin Heydon has announced that €750,000 in funding has been awarded to three projects researching antimicrobial resistance.

The projects are to research the development of strategies and tools to aid the detection of antimicrobial resistance in pathogens affecting plants and animals.

“The funding I am announcing today for these three projects will support Irish researchers to work with other scientists across Europe to develop solutions that will help us in combating the growing global threat of antimicrobial resistance,” Minister Heydon said.

Funding was awarded to these projects through the European joint programming initiative on antimicrobial resistance.

The three successful projects will be headed up by Teagasc’s Dr Steven Kildea, UCD’s Prof Seamus Fanning and Prof Fiona Walsh of NUI Maynooth.

New research call

A separate research call was also opened by Minister Heydon this week which will see €1m of Department of Agriculture funding in the area of animal health and welfare, with further funds committed by Teagasc.

This call aims to support research on the factors that drive animal health and welfare, technologies which improve animal health and welfare and examining how better animal health and welfare can affect farmers and the supply chain.

This new call is being opened under the European Partnership for Animal Health and Welfare.

“My Department will commit €1m to enable Irish researchers to collaborate with European counterparts in proposals to the first call under this partnership,” Minister Heydon commented.

“This is important for us, as it will allow research in areas such as technologies for prevention, detection, assessment and management of animal health and welfare."