“I’m very excited about leading and developing the new Doctoral Programme in One Health, which brings together the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine’s established programmes and builds on them a genuinely transdisciplinary whole. The programme combines preclinical and clinical research fields in a way that supports versatile and synergistic doctoral education. I believe that the programme will serve as an inspiring home to many doctoral researchers and their supervisors at the faculties active on the Viikki and Meilahti campuses, enabling close collaboration and the creation of shared research topics across faculty boundaries,” Lohi says.
As the name suggests, One Health is a broad-based approach encompassing research topics promoting the health and welfare of humans, other animals and the environment all at once. The programme emphasises both basic research and applied perspectives – animal health and welfare, clinical veterinary medicine, translational animal disease models, the study of infectious diseases and pathogens, food safety and environmental health, and drug safety constitute an excellent framework for top-level doctoral education.
“In Finland, the advancement of research is largely promoted by doctoral researchers, and it is essential to develop doctoral education comprehensively, taking into consideration high quality and the needs of society. I believe that the new Doctoral Programme in One Health will strengthen the position of our Faculty and the University of Helsinki as global leaders in One Health research and education,” says Dean Olli Peltoniemi.
Viikki Campus offers an exceptionally diverse setting for the programme: the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the Viikki Research Farm and the HiLIFE infrastructures support high-quality teaching and research. The four departments of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, the Research Centre for Animal Welfare and the world’s largest canine biobank constitute a solid foundation of expertise and research that combines behavioural sciences, physiology, pathology, genetics, genomics and epidemiology. In addition, the University of Helsinki’s research infrastructures, including histotechnology, imaging and model organism services, enable world-class translational research together with domestic and international partners.
About the Doctoral Programme in One Health
Coordinating faculty
- Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Faculties involved
- Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences
- Faculty of Pharmacy
- Faculty of Medicine
- Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry