STSM Scotland 2019

I took part of a 26-day Work group 1 Short term scientific mission (STSM) in a beautiful Scottish city of Inverness at the Epidemiology Research unit of the Scotland’s rural college (SRUC). Mentors who supervised my work and stay at the unit were prof. dr. George J. Gunn and dr. Carla Correia-Gomes.

I was entrusted with the job of gathering basic information on existing control programmes in member states for EU non-regulated cattle diseases. The gathered information included which countries have control programmes for certain diseases, what type of cattle they include (all, dairy, beef), whether they are voluntary or compulsory, weather they are national or regional, how they are funded, what type of programme they have in place (control, eradication, surveillance), do they have additional EU guarantees and what the current status of disease is in that country.

I had also made a questionnaire to collect information on the epidemiological, economic, social and political characteristics of different control programmes that we will use to compare them. My STSM was a joyful experience that I would recommend to anyone, who wants to gather knowledge and travel at the same time.

It was always a dream of mine to visit Scotland and to see Loch Ness, to try Haggis and also to live in an English-speaking country for a while and thanks to this STSM my dream came true. At this point I would also like to thank the team at the SRUC who welcomed me with open arms and helped me on my way when trouble arose and made my stay in Scotland a unique and pleasant experience.

Jaka Jakob Hodnik
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia