The main goal of Achilles is to significantly strengthen the science and technology capacity of UMinho in biophysics, cell/molecular biology and genetics/gene therapy in order to achieve global scientific excellence and competitiveness for the translation of advanced therapies/ tendon tissue engineering strategies to treat tendon injuries/diseases; At the same tine, Achilles also aims at positioning the research profile of UMinho and its staff in an outstanding international research level. This will be achieved by establishing a twinning process through knowledge sharing and collaboration between 3B’s Research Group of University of Minho (UMinho) and 2 internationally leading institutions: Department of Trauma Surgery of the University Regensburg Medical Centre (UHREG) and the Regenerative, Modular & Developmental Engineering Laboratory of the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG). Achilles will focus in defined areas in which UMinho shows a less scientific knowledge and are well-complemented by UHREG and NUIG. The project objectives are: - To significantly increase the scientific excellence in tendon tissue engineering and reinforce human resources profile of UMinho; - To significantly increase the international visibility of UMinho and unleash its networking gaps with international outstanding R&D organisations; - To create strong links between UMinho-UHREG-NUIG allowing a constant and sustained knowledge sharing and research collaboration network which will continue sustainably in the long-term; - To significantly increase the capacity of UMinho to translate excellent scientific production into new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of tendon disorders and in providing high-quality services and consulting, improved capability to compete for funding as well as generating useful intellectual property that can help to support in the long-term the sustainability of the organization.

The overall objective is to create a European joint programme (EJP) to deal with zoonotic diseases with a main emphasis on zoonotic foodborne microbial infection and intoxication, including natural toxins and the risks associated with domestic and wild life animal reservoirs and their exposure routes towards human infection, including those posed by possible illegal imports of animal products, in order to improve preparedness against future One Health risks. Related emerging threats such as antimicrobial resistance will be addressed. The aim is to build a sustainable frame for an integrated community of research groups including Reference laboratories and existing zoonoses networks of institutes in the domains of life sciences, medicine, veterinary medicine, animal sciences and environmental sciences, including joint programming and execution of research and other joint integrative activities such as information dissemination, education and training including knowledge management, access to strains collections, biobanks, experimental facilities and databases, including also harmonisation, standardisation, proficiency tests, training, short-term missions, workshops and summer schools. All the agents involved including viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, prions and nucleotide sequences/genetic material conferring antimicrobial resistance are within the scope. A consortium of 34 full members and 5 link third parties is set up. The basis of the structure is to include one “Med” institute and one “Vet” institute in the consortium from each Member State, all of them dealing with national, European or international reference mandates in the field of foodborne zoonoses. The relevant ministries (programme owners) of each participating country have appointed the research organizations (programme managers) to take part to EJP activities as beneficiaries. In fact, the Med Vet EJP consortium is a pre-established European network (NoE, FP6), it has been enlarged by introducing 25 new partners. National mirror groups are set up at the national level with a primarily role to share information. The management is not based on open external calls for proposals. The consortium set up an internal procedure dedicated to topics selection instead of projects selection. Different working group experts will merge in 2016 to prepare the strategic research agenda (SRA) and to identify the priority topics in the three domains identified: foodborne zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance and emerging threats. The management board, the Scientific Steering Board, the Programme Managers Committee will join in 2016 to discuss the work-programme. The specific work-package dedicated to science to policy translation will discuss with the two main stakeholders EFSA and ECDC, to prepare the actions. The present grant will cover the fees of the expert groups meetings in May and September 2016.

BretPal seeks to answer the main question of what is Breton Caroline minuscule, who wrote it, and where? Despite advances in our understanding of early medieval Brittany's political history, our knowledge of Brittany's literary and intellectual history remains stunted due to a lack of being able to definitively ascribe manuscripts (and, therefore, the texts contained within) to Brittany. BretPal will establish parameters to identify those manuscripts from early medieval Brittany (c. 780–1100) based upon palaeographic and Digital Humanities methods. The project offers the first comprehensive narrative of the scribal and literary culture of early medieval Brittany, as well as an open-access digital database using the Archetype software. Further, the project will examine the wider impact that Breton intellectual culture had upon wider early medieval western Europe through the Breton diaspora from the ninth century onwards. BretPal will be hosted by the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) and will be carried out under the auspices of the Moore Institute with a secondment at the École Pratique de Hautes Études, Université Paris, Sciences & Lettres.