Collaborative approaches in One Health to effectively address global challenges — Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The involvement of the Department of Molecular Sciences and SCAW in the scientific and organizing committees was possible due to the collaboration developed as a part of the project Happy Animals for Sustainable Production And Consumption (number 01877/2021), financially supported by the Swedish Institute.

The goal of the conference was to highlight ongoing work to solve global complex challenges, such as human health, food safety, animal welfare, ecosystems and climate change. The conference included presentations from a series of high-profile guest speakers and a discussion panel, where researchers, experts and authorities' representatives from various countries (USA, Sweden, Ukraine, China, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and others) discussed new research and suggested concrete proposals for needed actions and collaborative work.

The conference was opened by the chancellor of Khazar University, Irada Khalilova and the founder of Khazar University, Hamlet Isakhanli with an emotional minute of silence for children victims of wars and natural disasters. “We encourage building new contacts among researchers and non-academic stakeholders to boost future global collaboration to create a better future for our young ones”, said Irada Khalilova.

David Dyjack from the National Environmental Health Association, USA, underlined the importance of a joint strategy to minimise the consequences of natural disasters and discussed the impact of military conflicts on climate changes. Abduzhappar Gaipov of the Nazarbaev Universitet, Kazakhstan, explained the data management challenges in healthcare. Lu Xiaolin from Shanghai University, China, emphasised the value of building global innovation and entrepreneurship clusters during the post COVID-19 era.

SLU was represented by Galia Zamaratskaia, who gave a talk about the role of plant-based proteins in future food. She presented the results from the projects “Heritage cereals: historical ingredients in future foods”, supported by Formas, and "Buckwheat - value and contribution to future food in a changing climate", supported by KSLA.

 “The conference was an important event where we all had the opportunity to receive new information and increase knowledge that can be useful in the future. We hope that this conference will promote cooperation in order to strengthen security in the whole world”, said Galia Zamaratskaia.