Complex challenges rarely respect sectoral or geographic boundaries. Health outcomes are shaped not only by human factors but also by food systems and environmental conditions. Agricultural productivity is increasingly influenced by climate, data, and digital technologies. Environmental sustainability, in turn, depends on how societies design, deploy, and govern innovation at scale. The ONEHEALTH project is built on this understanding.
ONEHEALTH is supported by PEACEPLUS, a programme managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) and delivered through a partnership between Queen’s University Belfast, Catalyst, Atlantic Technological University (ATU), University of Galway, Tyndall National Institute, and Health Innovation Research Alliance Northern Ireland. It brings together expertise from across health, agri-food, environmental science, and digital innovation to address challenges that no single organisation, sector, or region can solve alone.
Rather than treating innovation as a series of disconnected projects, ONEHEALTH takes a systems-level approach, combining research excellence with applied engineering, commercial insights, and cross-border collaboration to ensure ideas move beyond theory and into real-world application.
READ MORE: Deep Tech Spin-Outs and the Path from Research to Real-World Impact
At the centre of this delivery model sits Momentum One Zero, Queen’s University Belfast’s business-led innovation centre for cybersecurity, AI, and wireless technologies. Momentum One Zero plays a critical role in translating ONEHEALTH’s ambition into practical outcomes — providing the engineering capability, secure infrastructure, and commercial pathways required to turn research into deployable solutions.
Defining the ONEHEALTH vision
ONEHEALTH is founded on a simple but powerful premise: complex societal challenges cannot be solved in isolation. Health, food security, and environmental sustainability are deeply interconnected, and effective solutions must reflect those interdependencies.
The programme focuses on applying AI, data-driven technologies, and secure digital systems to challenges such as disease prevention, early detection and treatment, sustainable food production, environmental monitoring, and public health resilience. Crucially, ONEHEALTH is not about technology for its own sake. Its goal is to create usable, scalable outputs that can be adopted by industry, public services, and policymakers.
These outputs include:
Momentum One Zero contributes to this vision by ensuring that innovation is designed with delivery in mind. Its engineering teams work alongside researchers and partners to embed security, interoperability, and scalability from the outset, reducing the risk that promising ideas stall at the pilot stage.
Is being small an advantage?
Northern Ireland is often described as a small region in a global context. Within ONEHEALTH, that scale is viewed as a strength rather than a limitation.
A compact ecosystem enables faster collaboration, shorter feedback loops, and closer working relationships between universities, industry, and government. When combined with cross-border partnerships through ATU and wider European networks supported by PEACEPLUS, this agility allows solutions to be tested, refined, and deployed more quickly than in larger, more fragmented systems.
Momentum One Zero acts as a connector within this ecosystem— aligning academic research with industry needs and ensuring that innovations are not developed in silos. Its role is not to replace existing expertise, but to join the dots, helping partners speak the same language across disciplines, sectors, and borders.
Is the digital infrastructure ready?
Applying AI to complex domains such as health, agri-food, and environmental systems requires more than algorithms. It demands:
ONEHEALTH benefits directly from the infrastructure and expertise available through Momentum One Zero. The centre provides secure compute environments, specialist engineering expertise, health, agrifood and environmental leadership and vast experience working in regulated and data-sensitive contexts.
This foundation is essential for moving AI from experimentation to production. It ensures that innovations developed through ONEHEALTH are not only technically impressive but also safe, trustworthy, and ready for real-world deployment.
Moving beyond the pilot trap
Across the innovation landscape, one challenge consistently emerges: promising pilots that never scale. The reasons are well known — lack of integration planning, unclear ownership, insufficient security, or no commercial pathway.
ONEHEALTH addresses this challenge by embedding delivery thinking from day one. Projects are designed with deployment in mind, considering how solutions will integrate into operational environments, how they will be maintained, and how value will be realised over time.
Momentum One Zero reinforces this approach by bringing engineering and commercial expertise directly into project teams. Rather than handing over solutions at the end of a research phase, delivery is continuous, increasing the likelihood that innovations move seamlessly from concept to adoption.
What will the “32 Major Outputs” look like?
ONEHEALTH’s ambition to deliver 32 major outputs reflects a focus on quality and impact rather than volume. These outputs are expected to include:
Momentum One Zero plays a crucial role in ensuring these outputs are industry-ready — translating research outcomes into solutions that businesses can adopt, adapt, and scale.
The value of cross-border collaboration
ONEHEALTH demonstrates the power of cross-border collaboration when it is anchored in shared challenges and practical delivery. By bringing together partners from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) led by ATU, the programme strengthens the region’s reputation as a place where complex innovation can be delivered responsibly and effectively
For Northern Ireland, this has tangible benefits:
Momentum One Zero supports this by acting as a visible platform for industry engagement, helping position Northern Ireland not just as an ecosystem of research excellence, but as a place where innovation can be implemented at scale.
From research to reputation
The long-term value of ONEHEALTH extends beyond individual projects. By demonstrating how research, engineering, and industry can work together seamlessly across borders, the programme contributes to Northern Ireland’s growing reputation as a region capable of tackling complex global challenges.
Momentum One Zero’s role is central to this narrative. By linking research excellence with delivery capability, building sustainable collaborative research networks with our RoI academic partners, it helps ensure that ONEHEALTH’s impact is lasting, measurable, and relevant to the real economy.
READ MORE: Momentum One Zero sod-cutting marks start of expanded facility at Queen’s Titanic Quarter
A platform for sustainable impact
ONEHEALTH is not intended as a one-off initiative. It is a platform designed to support ongoing collaboration, encourage continuous learning, and deliver long-term impact across health, agri-food, and environmental systems.
As the programme evolves, Momentum One Zero will continue to support partners by providing:
Through the ONEHEALTH project, Momentum One Zero demonstrates what is possible when research ambition is matched with delivery capability, — turning cross-border collaboration into real-world impact for Northern Ireland and beyond. Innovation knows no borders – neither should we.
Sync NI's Spring 2026 magazine explores innovation and collaboration transforming Northern Ireland's technology ecosystem
This issue features exclusive insights from industry leaders on AI transformation, cybersecurity evolution, legal technology innovation, and how strategic partnerships between academia and business are accelerating real-world impact across the region.
Read the Spring 2026 edition free online →
Stay connected with NI's tech community:
