The Organización Interprofesional de la Carne de Vacuno de España, PROVACUNO (Spanish Beef Interprofessional Organisation), has signed an agreement with the Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM) for the creation of the University Business Chair ‘Research in Animal Protein, Nutrition and Health’, which will be based at the UCAM Campus in Murcia.

The aim of the Chair is to carry out activities of research, transfer, dissemination, teaching and innovation on beef as a natural source of protein, its maturation processes and release of essential amino acids and bioactive peptides in order to generate advances that improve the quality of the product, optimise production processes and promote its positive impact on human health. 

The presidents of both institutions, María Dolores García Mascarell and Jaime Yartu San Millán, have ratified this week the collaboration agreement for the implementation of this Chair, which also aims to establish synergies between the university and the meat sector, promoting specialised training and facilitating the incorporation of the results in the market and in social awareness. Furthermore, this programme has an open vision, in which other research groups in Spain and abroad that are benchmarks in this field can collaborate.

Jaime Yartu, President of PROVACUNO, expressed his satisfaction at the signing of this agreement which aims to ‘promote research in an area as important as animal protein, and encourage the transfer of knowledge, for both the sector, with improvements that contribute to optimising production processes and product quality, and for society, through the dissemination of the results.’ He also stressed that ‘this Chair is only the beginning of other collaborations with the UCAM in the near future’.

José María Cayuela, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Nutrition at UCAM, defined the Chair as ‘an observatory for innovation and research in beef’, highlighting its value as a source of amino acids or active peptides. Likewise, the Chair will be a forum for training, with specialisation courses in this field. ‘This Chair strengthens our position as an important research centre in the agri-food sector,’ he added.

The training activities include, among others, the organisation of conferences, seminars and conventions, collaboration in undergraduate, master's and doctoral courses taught at UCAM in the Chair's areas of interest, collaboration in postgraduate programmes and the awarding of prizes for Master's Dissertations and Doctoral Theses.

Regarding the research area, the Chair includes the elaboration and development of joint research projects between both parties, technology transfer activities to the productive sector, the promotion of expert meetings in the area of interest of the Chair or the provision of pre-doctoral grants to students in order to carry out doctoral theses in subjects related to the Chair.