Normandie Equine Vallée is making significant investments at its Goustranville and Saint-Contest sites for new structures and teams in the field of equine health. Its pool of resources and skills makes Normandy a region known for its world-class equine health expertise. 

From diagnosis to treatment, Normandy will soon be home to every kind of equine health and research facility and skill-set. Laboratories, imaging centre, autopsy rooms, physiotherapy and rehabilitation centre (KINESIA), research units, training structures, companies: Normandie Equine Vallée‘s infrastructures at its Goustranville and Saint-Contest sites already play host to researchers, students and entrepreneurs involved in equine health. The mixed association is now making significant investments to extend existing facilities and build new ones.

Normandie Equine Vallée

Normandie Equine Vallée is a mixed association that has united the Normandy Region and Calvados Département behind the same cause since 2010. It designs and funds projects to build equine health and research facilities. Its two Calvados sites in Goustranville and Saint-Contest form an international campus housing teams of scientists who are world-renowned in the field.

An equine campus in Goustranville 

46 M€ has been invested in Goustranville to update the labs and house the equine unit of the prestigious École Vétérinaire d’Alfort (Enva) veterinary college by 2025. As part of the project, Normandie Equine Vallée is buiding an equine university hospital and neighbouring stables, a quarantine unit, smart lecture room and student accommodation. 

A Work-Life Centre (with coworking spaces, incubators and offices) is also opening on-site. Entrepreneurs and major industry figures will call it home. Hippolia, the equine business cluster, the Conseil des Chevaux de Normandie and Comité Régional d’Equitation de Normandie will move in over the next few months… 

It will give a whole new dimension to Goustranville, where ANSES (animal health lab), CIRALE (imaging and research centre for musculoskeletal disorders) and the Fédération Nationale des Courses Hippiques en France lab are already based. A total of 6500m2 in additional premises will open. In the long-term, 250 people will be on-site every day, compared to fifty before. 

By pooling teaching, research and businesses involved in equine research and health, the two Normandie Equine Vallée sites will form a unique equine campus like nowhere else on the planet. A world-class facility that will empower international collaborations and partnerships as well as promote Normandy as a further education hotspot.

LE PROJET DE GOUSTRANVILLE  EN BREF

  • Foundation of a veterinary hospital and neighbouring stables, a smart medical lecture theatre, a room for practical work, student accommodation and a business centre (work-life centre)
  • Renovation and extension of research laboratories
  • 46 M€ in investment, funded by Normandie Equine Vallée with the support of the Normandy Region, Calvados Département, Fonds Eperon, European Regional Development Fund and ADEME (Environment and Energy Management Agency).
  • Launch on January 1st 2025

A new genomics research unit in Saint-Contest

Normandie Equine Vallée is expanding its equine health and biotechnology platform in Saint-Contest. Objectives: open a new genomics research unit and improve working conditions for existing research teams – including Labéo (analysis and research centre), Caen-Normandy University and RESPE (equine infectious disease surveillance).

The new facility will be available to site partners and research teams from overseas (including the Irish Equine Centre). It will develop research into certain equine pathologies and infectious diseases using the genetic markers in their DNA to produce preventive treatment. The project also includes creating spaces to accommodate new businesses specialising in biotechnology for equine health as well as companies that are already on-site (Equiways and Equibiogènes, which handle biosecurity and equine genetics respectively). All the new premises will be handed over in summer 2024. 

The research teams at the Saint-Contest biotechnology platform are already working on respiratory, osteoarthritis and infectious diseases in horses and will be able to broaden the scope of their research with the help of genomics.

LE PROJET DE SAINT-CONTEST EN BREF

  • Foundation of a genomics unit with a lab, storage space, offices and communal areas for companies and entrepreneurs
  • 5.5 M€ investment, funded by Normandie Equine Vallée with the support of the Calvados Département, Caen la Mer and Fonds Eperon.
  • Inauguration on October 11th 2024

Two sites pooling skills like nowhere else on the planet

The Goustranville and Saint-Contest sites will give Normandie Equine Vallée an all-encompassing range of facilities and skills devoted to equine health, from diagnostics to care, in one single region. 

We'll have teams handling anything from locomotion and viruses to causes of death and performance enhancement, as well as preventive healthcare and treatments. It makes sense for a one-of-a-kind campus like this to be in Normandy, the barycentre of the national and international equine sector

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