On Monday, 29 September 2025, GBADs and DECIDE hosted the ninth official seminar in their collaborative webinar series titled “Tools for decision-making: turning data into actionable information”. This session featured our DECIDE tool Cattle Barometer: Charlotte Doidge talked about Living Lab user design aspects, while Stan Jourquin covered the tool development and the technical work. Two speakers from GBADs João Afonso and Sara Babo Martins joined to present their work on AMU/AMR dashboard.
The session began with a joint presentation by João Afonso, DVM, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK, and Sara Babo Martins, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK, from GBADs on their work on the AMU/AMR dashboard. A vet by training, João specialises in epidemiology and animal health economics after completing his PhD. He has a broad interest in animal health and welfare, with a recent focus on assessing the burden of antimicrobial resistance in livestock species. Sara is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh whose work centres on the One Health approach, with a particular focus on identifying and measuring its value. In recent years, her research has concentrated on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its impact on livestock. Sara holds both an MSc and a PhD from the Royal Veterinary College.
Charlotte Doidge from DECIDE has continued the session, presenting Living Lab user design aspects of the Cattle Barometer. Charlotte Doidge is an Assistant Professor in Livestock Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, UK. Previously, she was a Research Fellow working on the social science work package of the DECIDE project. Her research focuses on farmer and veterinarian decision making and practices related to livestock health, welfare, and technology.
The webinar then continued with a presentation by Stan Jourquin from DECIDE, who talked about the Cattle Barometer tool development and the technical work behind it. Stan is a veterinarian (Ghent University, 2020) and postdoctoral researcher in bovine internal medicine, focusing on calf health and the use of quick thoracic ultrasound (qTUS) for pneumonia diagnosis in calves. He leads a project on Mycoplasma bovis control in Belgium and contributes to the DECIDE project by further developing the Cattle barometer and practical tools for farmers and veterinarians.
The session sparked active discussions with participants asking questions both live and through the Q&A chat. A big thank you to our speakers for their insightful presentations and to Jonathan Rushton for moderating the session.
The next GBADs & DECIDE webinar is planned for November 2025, with details to be announced. We look forward to continuing the conversation and building on the insights from this session.