The research group of VISAVET belongs to Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the biggest and oldest (1949) university of Spain, and was established in 2002 (www.vigilanciasanitaria.es). VISAVET has an area of 1,917m2 of surface, including BSL2 and BSL3 laboratories and animal facilities. VISAVET is staffed by a team of professionals with over 25 years of experience in Animal Health and Food Safety. Nowadays, is a leading research group of bacterial and viral infectious diseases, new diagnosis techniques, immunology and vaccine studies, epidemiology and development of prevention and disease control systems.

VISAVET-UCM has been named European Reference Laboratory for Bovine Tuberculosis, and Reference Laboratory of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) for African swine fever and African horse sickness. It is member of International Projects and Research Networks such as ASFORCE, RAPIDIA-FIELD, RISK SUR, CSF-GODIVA, Orbivac, Med-REO-Net, MED-VET-NET, TB-STEP, ParaTBtools, etc. It is the responsible for coordinating the Veterinary Surveillance Network of Resistance to Antibiotics (Red VAV) and the Health Surveillance Program of the Community of Madrid. It also collaborates actively with the Technology Platform for Global Animal Health and Animal Health Spanish Platform (http://www.vetmasi.es) and provides technical and laboratory support to all National Reference Laboratories and Spanish Veterinary Services.