Success and Influence of BREATH Continues to Grow

That the Parliament wishes the Border and Regions Airways Training Hub, better known as BREATH, every success in organising its dissemination event in the Ballymascanlon House Hotel, in Dundalk, on 30 March 2022; recognises the cross-border partnership between Dundalk Institute of Technology, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of the West of Scotland; believes that it has now established a world-class cluster of scientists and clinicians to address the causes, treatment and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which, it understands, is particularly prevalent in the south-west corner of Scotland; understands that BREATH has successfully trained 28 young scientists to PhD level, or beyond, in both project-specific scientific skills and, through industrial interactions, in transferable and complementary industry-relevant skills, with many of them progressing into high-level jobs in industry and academia; further understands that BREATH has established active collaborations with three industry partners and engaged with another 16 local and international companies over the course of the project, and has also created an extensive public outreach programme, consisting of multiple school visits and media events, through which it has, it understands, actively engaged with over 5,000 pupils to date, and wishes BREATH every success across all fronts in the future as it goes about bringing a greater understanding of COPD and lung health as well as possible implications involving long Covid.