Uniting Science for One Health: European RIs sign Declaration of Intent at BEeS 2025
The BEeS 2025 Conference began on Monday, 30 June 2025, with a discussion about adopting a Declaration of Intent during the European Research Infrastructures (RIs) “Working Table on Life component of the Biosphere: Complementarities and Synergies”, which was chaired by Christos Arvanitidis, LifeWatch ERIC’s CEO, Peter van Tienderen, LifeWatch ERIC’s VLIZ Director and Alberto Basset, LifeWatch ERIC’s Service Center Director.
The Declaration of Intent, the Crete Declaration, follows the event’s objective of defining a collaborative roadmap and formalises the intent of the parties involved to collaborate.
The closed-door Working Table involved RIs, e-Infrastructures, EU-relevant projects and scientific publishers, all united by the common cause of advancing the One Health approach, a strategy that optimises the health of people, animals, and ecosystems, through collaboration, research product integration, and open science.
This is of vital importance since the challenges of our time (climate change, biodiversity degradation, and emerging diseases) are complex and deeply intertwined, and they demand a joint effort of complementary strengths.
The Declaration focused the signatories’ commitment around four key strategic points:
- Strengthening the strategic collaboration
- Advancing data integration and FAIR principles
- Supporting Open Science Ecosystems
- Informing Policy and Practice
The parties welcome all European stakeholders committed to One Health to endorse this Declaration and contribute to its implementation.