One Health
ELEPHANT (Empowering universities’ Learning andrEsearch caPacities in the one Health Approach for the maNagement of animals at the wildlife, livestock and human interface in SouTh Africa ) is co-financed by the Erasmus+, KA2 Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) and aims at contributing to poverty relief, through the empowerment of South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) by boosting their innovation and research capacities in the One Health context, that should result in a more effective science-based health management at the interface between human, wildlife, livestock and environment.
Before the start of the ELEPHANT project, five of the eight partner institutions had not embraced OH principles in their research philosophy and it is fair to state that the ELEPHANT project acted as an enabler of OH in these institutions (namely UNIVEN, SAWC, UFH, UMP and UL).
At the University of Venda, the University of Fort Hare and the University of Mpumalanga, OH- related research was rare or non-existent and aspects of animal health, human health and their impacts on local rural communities and the environment have for the first time been linked during the ELEPHANT project. Staff members were trained in OH principles and the concept of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity was accepted. The OH research narrative will be carried forward at these universities through the ELEPHANT trainees. In 2023, a university-wide ONE HEALTH niche area was approved by the UNIVEN Council. At UFH an ELEPHANT-inspired funding proposal intends to bring together agricultural extension, animal health, wildlife biology, animal ecology, education and sociology.
At the Southern African Wildlife College and the University of Limpopo, OH principles enabled network growth and a change in mindset for future projects and training courses. ELEPHANT trainees were instrumental in the development of the workplace-integrated learning experience in the SAWC’s diploma course, including the integration of OH. At UL a new postgraduate module ‘Parasites and One Health’ was developed and community awareness initiatives formalized to enhance preparedness and awareness of endemic zoonotic disease threats and to sensitise children in Mankweng township school to the basics of environmental risk assessment.
The University of Bologna, Utrecht University and the University of Pretoria had previous experience in OH research, community engagement activities and teaching at least within their veterinary faculties. Under ELEPHANT OH research expanded to other departments including materials engineering and the Department of Quality of Life Sciences at UNIBO and increased collaboration within all three universities. Collaboration within the ELEPHANT consortium led to the creation of several collaborative teaching formats (Joint Teaching Units, JTU). ELEPHANT early carrier researchers and students participated in the virtually held UNIBO elective course Sustainable Development and OH. A JTU was held in 2023 with UMP on Biodiversity Management with a OH approach. At UU, OH is one of the Faculty's two main research themes. Research projects in OH-related topics have expanded and led to cross-pollination and inter-disciplinary collaboration between researchers internationally as shown in the Rift Valley Fever program at UP.
As a direct impact of the ELEPHANT project, inter-institutional and inter-disciplinary collaborations have been formed between ELEPHANT trainees, senior staff and their students some of which will continue beyond ELEPHANT. Examples include trainees from UP, UU and UNIBO collaboratively defining criteria for the OH-ness evaluation of research institutions; joint postgraduate supervision of OH research between UP and UFH; exchange visits of UU early career academics to UP and UFH. In 2023, a UU & UP Veterinary Public Health/OH Research session was held. UNIBO is coordinating the drafting of a proposal within HORIZON-CL6-2024-FARM2FORK which will integrate the OH concept for submission in 2024.
Concerning measuring the project's long-term impact it is proposed to use various indicators of OH-ness and OH collaboration to monitor the project’s long-term impact. As shown in the work done in Work Package 1, OH-related scientific publications and the level of collaboration in these studies allow a clear and comparable measure of OH outputs at institutional level.
