Two STSMs carried out at the Department of Biosystems Engineering, KU Leuven, and hosted by EU-LI-PHE Vice Chair Prof. Tomas Norton, have significantly advanced the stakeholder engagement and dissemination activities of our COST Action.
Amra Džuho, member of the Young Researchers and Innovators (YRI) Committee, completed her STSM at KU Leuven between 18-22 August 2025. Her mission directly supported Deliverable D4.3: Finalizing the Stakeholder Survey and Analyzing Inputs from the EU-LI-PHE Stakeholder Conference.
During her stay, Amra worked on the final refinement of the stakeholder survey to ensure full alignment with the strategic objectives of EU-LI-PHE. Particular attention was given to the clarity of questions, relevance to different stakeholder groups, and methodological robustness. She also prepared the strategy for disseminating the survey across relevant European stakeholder networks, ensuring broad participation and meaningful data collection. This work is essential for strengthening the participatory dimension of EU-LI-PHE. By systematically collecting and analyzing stakeholder input, the Action ensures that future activities, recommendations, and innovations are grounded in real-world needs from breeding organizations, farmers, industry representatives, and policy actors.
In the first week of September, Dr. Adna Ašić, the Science Communication Coordinator of EU-LI-PHE, carried out a complementary STSM at KU Leuven, focusing on Deliverable D5.3: Report from the EU-LI-PHE Stakeholder Conference.
Her work centered on synthesizing discussions, conclusions, and key messages from the Stakeholder Conference into a structured report. This deliverable captures expert insights on phenotyping technologies, genome-to-phenome integration, computational infrastructures, and regulatory and socio-economic considerations. The report serves as an official reference document, translating conference outcomes into actionable knowledge for the network and external stakeholders.
Together, Deliverables D4.3 and D5.3 form a critical bridge between dialogue and implementation. While D5.3 documents stakeholder perspectives and strategic discussions from the conference, D4.3 transforms these insights into a structured survey instrument to systematically gather broader feedback across Europe. This combined approach ensures that EU-LI-PHE does not operate in isolation but evolves in continuous interaction with the livestock sector and related communities. It reinforces transparency, inclusiveness, and evidence-based decision-making within the Action.
We sincerely thank the KU Leuven Biosystems Engineering Department for hosting both missions and for their continued support in advancing stakeholder engagement.
