FGI FEDERAL CENTRE FOR ANIMAL HEALTH

Their core work

FGI ARRIAH (All-Russian Research Institute for Animal Health), based in Vladimir, Russia, is the country's federal reference laboratory for dangerous and transboundary animal diseases. Their core work covers virological research, vaccine development, epidemiological surveillance, and diagnostic assay design for livestock pathogens — with a particular concentration on African Swine Fever (ASF), a disease for which Russia has served as a major endemic reservoir affecting European pig populations for over a decade. In H2020, they contributed strain collections, field epidemiological data, and laboratory expertise that EU-based partners could not easily replicate, making them a bridge between Eurasian disease reservoirs and Western European control programs. Their involvement in both a disease surveillance consortium and a DIVA vaccine project signals active capacity across the full pipeline from outbreak characterization to eradication tooling.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 project (DEFEND, 2018) addressed a broad dual-disease challenge — ASF plus Lumpy Skin Disease — with an emphasis on emerging disease surveillance and a multi-actor, multi-species scope. By their second project (VACDIVA, 2019), the focus had narrowed sharply to ASF alone, and the work shifted from characterization toward intervention: vaccine design, eradication strategy, and DIVA-capable diagnostics. This reflects a natural maturation from "understand and monitor" to "develop tools to eliminate," consistent with the trajectory of EU-funded ASF research as the disease spread westward across Europe during this period.

ARRIAH is moving from broad transboundary disease monitoring toward applied eradication tooling, specifically DIVA vaccines and companion diagnostics for ASF — a highly targeted specialization with direct policy relevance for any future EU pig-health programs.

How they like to work

ARRIAH has participated exclusively as a consortium partner, never leading a project, which is typical for non-EU institutions in H2020 — project coordination by third-country organisations is restricted. Despite this formal limitation, the breadth of their network (54 partners across 29 countries from just two projects) indicates they joined large, well-funded international consortia rather than peripheral small-team efforts. Their role is that of a specialist contributor: providing unique access to Eurasian disease strains, field epidemiological data from endemic zones, and laboratory reference functions that Western European partners depend on but cannot supply themselves.

Despite only two projects, ARRIAH accumulated 54 unique consortium partners across 29 countries — an unusually wide network for such a small H2020 portfolio, reflecting the large, multi-national consortia typical of EU animal disease programs. Their collaborator base spans both EU member states and third countries, consistent with the transboundary nature of ASF research.

What sets them apart

As Russia's national reference laboratory for animal diseases, ARRIAH holds institutional access to ASF virus strains, outbreak sequence data, and field samples from the Eurasian endemic zone that is the original source of the ASF genotype currently circulating across Europe — data and materials that no EU lab can independently obtain. This makes them an irreplaceable partner for any scientifically rigorous ASF vaccine or diagnostic project that must account for strain diversity. The critical caveat is geopolitical: following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, EU institutions face severe legal and political constraints on collaboration with Russian state entities, which effectively suspends the practical value of this partnership for current and near-future EU-funded projects.

Highlights from their portfolio

• VACDIVA
  Targets one of the most critical unmet needs in European veterinary medicine — a DIVA-compatible ASF vaccine, which would allow mass vaccination while preserving the serological traceability required for international trade and official eradication programs.
• DEFEND
  Unusually broad scope tackling two co-emerging transboundary threats (ASF and Lumpy Skin Disease) simultaneously with a multi-actor approach, reflecting ARRIAH's cross-disease reference capacity.