VTRI - Veterinary Training and Research Initiative funded by Defra and Hefce
Successive reports have identified a developing "knowledge gap" in veterinary research in Britain - making both the farming community and the nation as a whole more and more vulnerable to the effects of major outbreaks of animal disease like the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic. The Veterinary Training Research Initiative (VTRI) aims to fill this knowledge gap by encouraging both student and practising vets to buy into the objectives of the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy 2004 and get involved in the kind of ground-breaking research that could prevent or halt outbreaks of animal disease - and equip the profession with better tools to tackle them when they do occur.
The Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Liverpool, has been awarded £4.2M for a package of interdisciplinary research and training focussed on the epidemiology of food-borne zoonotic infections.
This comprises four research programmes
- R1: Origins, transmission pathways and emergence of human campylobacter infections
- R2: The role of wildlife in the epidemiology of campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis and VTEC infections
- R3: Between animal and between farm transmission: the role of behaviour, signalling and host genetics
- R4: Verocytotoxin-encoding bacteriophages- ecology and role in disease
And an integrated teaching/training programme
- Intercalated MSc for veterinary students: MSC in Veterinary Infection and Disease Control
- Summer vacation scholarships
- Research electives for veterinary students
- Contribution to clinical rotations and undergraduate projects
- PhD studentships
- MSc in Veterinary Public Health
- MSc in Veterinary Epidemiology (for a Research Leave Fellow)
- MSc in Medical Statistics
- MPhil studentship
- Various research-based short courses, workshops and CPD / placement training.