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• EXSUM2013_01

January 24, 2013.

Executive Summary from Interbull Steering Committee

• The Interbull Steering Committee met in Uppsala in January 8, 2013, following a two day strategic meeting in which also participated members of the Interbull Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and of the ICAR Executive Board. Main discussion points and decisions are summarized below.

Strategic Planning Meeting

• The strategic planning session was very comprehensive and yielded a structured framework to guide Interbull for the next three years. Jarmo Juga acted as facilitator and his contribution is greatly appreciated. Detailed information about the outcomes from the meeting will be made public as soon as possible in a specific communication.

Robust GMACE

Input data and distribution of GMACE results

• All bulls 2-5 years of age and passing initial edits are included in the GMACE processes for variance estimation

• All bulls passing the initial edits (less than 7 years of age and no conventional proof) are included in the GEBV prediction (as opposed to the November 2012 test run, when only official national GEBVs were included for GEBV prediction).
• IN TEST RUNS, all bulls older than 2 years and official bulls younger than 2 years of age and included in GMACE will be distributed back to countries for checking results, when by default nobody is allowed to publish or utilize Interbull results at the national level.
• Only bulls that have official publication status in at least one population will be distributed during ROUTINE RUNS.
• The Interbull Centre will distribute additional statistics during routine runs to allow countries to further verify the quality of results.
• The SC will further discuss how to assign official publication status in GMACE routine runs in a conference call to be scheduled within two months and provide details to users.

GEBV test

• Only population-traits passing the GEBV test will be included in the February 2013 GMACE test run for which results are expected to be circulated to all countries in March 2013.

• Consequently, the GEBV test will be applied to submitted data right after the deadline (February 19) and before starting the GMACE test run.
• Only population-traits included in the February GMACE test run can participate in the first GMACE routine run (August 2013), following the historical Interbull test run policy.

• After February 19^th, the GEBV-test deadlines for 2013 are July 1^st and November 4^th. Passing the GEBV-tests in July and November will allow participation in the September 2013 and January 2014 test runs, respectively.

Working Group for standardization of genomic reliability computations

• The SC decided to invite a group of accomplished scientists to form a working group to recommend principles for standardization of genomic reliability computations with the purpose of improving international comparisons of genomic values. As a SC member, Bevin Harris will act as the WG convener and the other members are in the process of being invited.

Service Agreements

• The SC is working on a service agreement for participating in and the publication of GMACE results at the national level and the Interbull Centre will propose new service contracts to all users to include both MACE and GMACE services. Therefore, all participants in Interbull services will be requested to sign new service contracts in the near future, prior to the August 2013 routine run.

Fee structure for genomic services

• Currently, there are two service fees related to genomic services: Intergenomics fees and a fee for participation in the GEBV test. Implementation of GMACE will demand extra resources and therefore require a service fee to be added. After deliberation, the SC decided:
  • The GEBV test fee should be maintained, since it is independent of GMACE (countries participating in Intergenomics as well as countries that are willing to conform to EU regulations also participate in the GEBV test).
• The Interbull Centre should present to the SC before the next conference call an activity-based budget with the GMACE-specific dedicated resources in order to quantify the amount of fees needed.
• Concomitant to the budget, the Interbull Centre should present also a GMACE fee structure proposal, and a decision must be made by the SC and communicated to users within two months.
• Only countries submitting GEBV data to GMACE will be charged with GMACE fees, although all countries participating in MACE runs will also receive GMACE results on their respective scale.

Turnaround time for official runs

• The SC has decided to increase the turnaround time for the August 2013 official routine run from the current 14 days to 21 days. The main arguments favoring this increase in the turnaround time are:
  • GMACE runs represent a completely new activity to be added to a quite tight existing schedule of activities to be performed between data reception and pre-release dates.
• Both national evaluation centers and the Interbull Centre will require significant additional resources for data preparation and checking on top of what is already involved in the MACE runs.
• Any detection of problems in the MACE results after the pre-release date will imply MACE re-runs and consequent GMACE re-runs, with almost no time opportunity for result checking.
• The complexity of MACE runs already require a big effort for countries to check results between pre-release and official release dates, and adding checks for GMACE at national and international levels doubles the number of HOL files to check – therefore the main goal with the proposal is to increase the time between pre-release and official release dates and allow countries to perform more checks. At the time of the next Interbull Business Meeting scheduled for August 2013, the SC will seek feedback from participating countries regarding the likely need to allow a 21-day turnaround time for all Interbull routine runs after the August 2013 release. Therefore, the work plan for the August 2013 routine run is:

Genomic data repository and exchange platform

• One clear outcome from the strategic plan was the urgency of Interbull establishing a data base for genomic data. A business model based on results of the survey conducted among Interbull collaborators in August and September 2012 was discussed by the SC and the relevant points were:
  • Services involving parentage SNPs (either ISAG approved or subset of approximately 400 SNPs from the 50K panel) should not compete with the national authorities for parentage verification.
• Target a broader portfolio of breeds than the ones currently included in the Interbull international comparisons.
• Consider subcontracting the database services from a well-established organization in the field as an option to speed up implementation of the first types of services. It was made clear, that this can only be an interim solution before the system is hosted at Interbull.
• Seek the technical advice of an expert group regarding the potential options to structure such service in an optimized way.
• Given the urgency of responding to the expectations, the business plan should be finalized and be ready for implementation within the next three months.