GroupHouseNet 

We held the fourth Management Committee meeting of GroupHouseNet on November 9th followed by working group meetings on November 9th and 10th, 2017 in Bilbao, at the Faculty of Agriculture, Escuela Agraria Derio (School of Agriculture), Basque Country, Spain. Representatives of 22 countries were present and contributed to discussions of management and implementation of the Action. The three working group leaders offered updates on ongoing and planned activities in their working groups. The three working groups also met separately to present and discuss their research and ideas. Then, the planned review papers and other activities were considered in each working group, and the plans were adjusted according to the internal discussions. Other areas of focus of the MC meeting were decisions regarding the location of future meetings (Alsancak, Turkey June 27th-29th 2018 and Slovakia or Poland in November 2018). Another focus of the meeting was to encourage young participants to take leadership roles in the Action. A third aim was to clarify dissemination activities that should increase the impact of the project. The meeting in June 2018 in Turkey will focus on coordinating network-wide activities. It will also focus on producing dissemination materials in collaboration with international stakeholders, related to solving challenges with keeping laying hens and pigs without beak trimming or tail docking, as this is an essential topic in many EU countries. During the MC meeting, we also looked back at the second successful GroupHouseNet Training School that was held in the same location in the days before the Management Committee meeting. The Training School was a success, with a lot of interactions between the 44 participants and trainees from 19 different European countries. The Training School also provided ideas for further research and dissemination within the network and new collaborations and STSMs. We look forward to the next meeting in June 2018 in Turkey!