At the OIE Annual General Session in May 2014, an OIE Collaborating Centre consortium for Food Safety comprising the OIE Collaborating Centre for Food Safety, Food Safety Research Center at the University of Tokyo, and adding the Veterinary Public Health Centre (VPHC; later changed to the National Centre for Food Science) in Singapore and the Division of Health and Environmental Sciences (DHES) of Department of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM), Rakuno Gakuen University (RGU).

In April 2021, under the process of restructuration of the SVM, RGU, in order to centralize the domestic and international extension activities and to facilitate and expand practical education through inter-disciplinary collaborations in serving societies, the Preventive Veterinary Medicine Extension-Network (PVM-E-Net), in which DHES plays core role, was established. At the same time, the OIE Collaborating Centre consortium for Food Safety at RGU was expanded from the DHES (Division of Preventive Veterinary Medicine: DPVM from April 2021) to the SVM.

• To provide services to the OIE, in particular within the region, in the designated specialty, in support of the implementation of OIE policies and, where required, seek for collaboration with OIE Reference Laboratories;
• To propose or develop methods and procedures that facilitate harmonisation of international standards and guidelines applicable to the designated specialty;
• To carry out and/or coordinate scientific and technical studies in collaboration with other centres, laboratories or organisations;
• To collect, process, analyse, publish and disseminate data and information relevant to the designated specialty;
• To provide, within the designated specialty, scientific and technical training to personnel from OIE Member Countries;
• To organise and participate in scientific meetings and other activities on behalf of the OIE;
• To identify and maintain existing expertise, in particular within its region;
• To establish and maintain a network with other OIE Collaborating Centres designated for the same specialty, and should the need arise, with Collaborating Centres in other disciplines;
• To place expert consultants at the disposal of the OIE.

PVM-E-Net was established in April 2021, re-recognizing the importance of extension service based on the Spirit of Establishment of RGU (three loves: love to God, people, and soil; and healthy soil makes healthy people) in realizing vital education/capacity building, which played a key role in development of dairy industry in Hokkaido Island since the establishment of RGU in 1933. By the enhancement of collaborations between specialties, PVM-E-Net continues to create and disseminate extension activities which match with the always changing needs from societies, and in such environment, undergraduate and postgraduate students study the approaches towards health and welfare of humans, animals and environment.

PVM-E-Net aims to provide flexible and inter-disciplinary extension activities not only on animal production medicine, animal health, and public health, but also on companion animal medicine and wildlife medicine. The expertise, capacity, and domestic and international networks developed through such activities maintain in the international extension capability as the OIE Collaborating Centre consortium to improve animal production food safety in OIE Member Countries.

PVM-E-Net consists of Faculty members of the SVM with DPVM as the core division, affiliated Faculty members of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES), and undergraduate and postgraduate students who wish to join (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The structure of Preventive Veterinary Medicine Extension-Network (PVM-E-Net)

The committee members of the PVM-E-Net are as follows. The committee members connect Faculty members between different divisions, departments and School/College depending on the social needs, in order to keep creating opportunities of new extension/collaborative researches, which contribute to the societies.

Head, PVM-E-Net:

Division of Preventive Veterinary Medicine

Veterinary Herd Health

Animal Health

Food Microbiology and Food Safety

Zoonosis

Veterinary Epidemiology

Division of Biosciences

Division of Pathobiology

Division of Farm Animal Clinical Sciences

Division of Companion Animal Clinical Sciences

Department of Veterinary Science

The head of PVM-E-Net is the contact point of the OIE Collaborating Centre for Food Safety in RGU. To fulfil the responsibility of the OIE Collaborating Centre specified in the Terms of Reference, PVM-E-Net operates the activities related to farm to fork and environmental health and ethics, using Plan, Do, Check, and Assess (PDCA) cycle quality assurance/control (Figure 2).