SEBI-Livestock wins five-year funding grant to expand work on development decisions. A $14.9 million grant will strengthen work on livestock data insights by SEBI-Livestock, hosted at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies.The five-year Evidence into Action (EnAct) grant from the Gates Foundation will enhance the work of the SEBI-Livestock team, which has collaborated with the Gates Foundation to monitor the impact of the foundation’s livestock investments for almost a decade. It will enable SEBI-Livestock to expand and enhance tools and processes for monitoring, data collation, modelling, insights and learning within livestock development projects and for the wider sector. Livestock is a key area within the foundation’s Global Agricultural Development strategy, which aims to improve farmer income, enhance nutrition, and inclusively and sustainably transform agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The funding award will enable the team to assess and inform livestock development. Tracking trends SEBI-Livestock is applying data solutions to build a comprehensive picture of how the livestock sector is performing in key countries, and to track the contribution of the Gates Foundation’s investments towards its livestock targets. By monitoring national livestock trends, SEBI-Livestock helps provide vital context for the foundation’s investment-making decisions. To date, it has enabled improvements in data sharing and monitoring, working closely with 18 Gates-funded projects to measure progress against 100 standardised metrics. Under the new grant, the programme will continue to develop proactive and novel solutions to strengthen monitoring and learning. It will cover a wider range of agricultural development priorities in livestock than before and support the foundation with data and insights to underpin new investments including ambitious, large-scale initiatives. SEBI-Livestock will also work with the foundation and its grantees on investments in emerging areas of animal nutrition, aquaculture, pastoral markets, and methane mitigation. In addition to in-house expertise, SEBI-Livestock helps mobilise collaborative solutions from a global community of experts, through hosting the Livestock Data for Decisions network (LD4D). With over 2500 members across 40 countries, LD4D has supported its members to share learnings in livestock development and jointly resolve livestock data and evidence challenges. In EnAct, SEBI-L will join forces with the Data Science Unit at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, which applies cutting-edge data science and AI tools for social good. Hosting SEBI-Livestock strengthens our School's global impact in veterinary science. Its rigorous, data-driven work has shaped hundreds of millions of dollars in development funding decisions. This is the kind of research excellence that defines our institution and will inspire our students to tackle livestock development challenges. Professor Lisa Boden Head of School and Dean of Veterinary Medicine This funding allows SEBI-Livestock to advance its crucial work, building on nearly a decade of collaboration with the Gates livestock team and its grantees.The SEBI-L team is unique in bringing together veterinary expertise and data science insights to tackle complex livestock data challenges and close persistent evidence gaps. We are proud to be supporting the foundation and its grantees in making data-driven decisions and investments. This will ultimately translate into more impactful livestock programmes that improve livelihoods for livestock keepers, empower women, and reduce the sector’s environmental and climate footprint. Dr Karen Smyth SEBI-Livestock Program Director SEBI-Livestock conducts vital work to evidence the need for, and impact of, strategies to improve the production and welfare of livestock. This funding will enable them to strengthen and scale their ongoing collaborative work with the Gates Foundation and the global livestock community. SEBI-Livestock tackles a critical bottleneck: making livestock data reliable, accessible, and usable so that evidence can drive better development decisions. Professor Mark Stevens Interim Director, Roslin Institute Related links SEBI-Livestock Image credit: Maria Ivanova and Unsplash. Publication date 14 Nov, 2025
