The Animal Health and Nutrition Consortium: A collaborative model to fund precompetitive research and career development

The Animal Health and Nutrition Consortium (AHNC) is a new industry-member supported consortium with the mission to promote innovation and advances in production and companion animal health and welfare, with a special focus on gut health, nutrition, using precision technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) big data analytics. The research focus is on precompetitive research topics, driven by industry needs. The AHNC provides a framework to bring industry partners together with an interdisciplinary team of over 200 food animal faculty distributed across North Carolina State University departments. The consortium sponsors precompetitive research and solutions that encompass the health and nutrition of production and companion animals including, but not limited to, the potential value of feed ingredients and additives; digestive physiology; gut health and the enteric microbiome; impact on environmental sustainability and climate change, efficiency of nutrient utilization and minimization of environmental emissions; animal food quality and safety; integration of nutrition and animal welfare and well-being; big data analytics; and other emerging issues relevant to livestock, aquaculture, and companion animals. Benefits accrue to all AHNC partners in the form of resources for faculty research, leveraged research funding for industry, and developing the next generation of industry employees and policymakers. The AHNC provides defined engagement rules for members from competing companies with an opportunity to leverage their investments through 1 of 3 memberships: $50,000 for full membership with the privilege of 2 votes at advisory board meetings, $25,000 for associate membership with one vote, and $0 for non-profit membership (no voting rights). Any intellectual property generated from the consortium will be available for non-exclusive license to members in good standing. Future extension and education components of the AHNC include industry workshops, academic symposia, graduate student fellowships, undergraduate scholarships, and the AHNC Summer Institute.

Key Words: industry consortium, funding model, industry-academic collaboration, research, career development.

Presented at the 9th Symposium on Gut Health in Production of Food Animals, St. Louis, USA, 2021. For information on the next edition, click here.