In response to COVID-19 pandemic, GloPID-R Secretariat and Members have produced a number of significant outputs:
• COVID-19 Response Strategy Coordination meetings to identify research gaps and research priorities
• Active participation in the virtual Global Research and Innovation Fora of the WHO R&D Blueprint.
• COVID-19 Research Synergies meetings convened on a range of themes such as of vaccines, therapeutics, understanding transmission, and social sciences
• Live Research Project Tracker, tracking investments in COVID-19 research against the WHO R&D Blueprint categories to assist in global research response decision making
• COVID CIRCLE, in particular to harness continual mapping and analysis of global COVID-19 funding through the COVID-19 Research Project Tracker
• Long COVID Joint Research Forum, in particular about the clinical, biological, psychological and socio-environmental impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19
• GloPID-R members meeting on the new variant of SARS-CoV-2
• COVID-19 Research in LMICs Working Group to identify research gaps and needs across LMICs and organised a virtual meeting on ‘Priorities for COVID-19 research response and preparedness in low-resource settings’, in collaboration with UKCDR and the COVID-19 Clinical research Coalition.
• Social Sciences Working Group which provided significant contributions to the development of the United Nations Research Roadmap for COVID-19 recovery.
Other (non-COVID-19) main achievements for research preparedness:
• Pandemic PACT: based on the success of the COVID-19 Project Tracker GloPID-R developed and refined plans for a more advanced platform covering a wider range of priority pathogens. Its aims to develop and run a continuously innovative tool and associated analytical capacity collating and analysing global funding on high consequence pathogens and epidemic preparedness activities with data that is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). The overarching goal is to increase efficiency and effectiveness of research responses by researchers and funders during disease outbreaks.
• Clinical Trials: Having tracked the progress of the G7 Charter on Clinical Trials (2021) and the World Health Assembly resolution (2022), GloPID-R set a new strategy which resulted in organising a Funders Forum on Clinical Trials, preparing the Living Funders Roadmap on the Coordination of Clinical Trials proposal that will be endorsed by GloPID-R Members early 2023 before finalisation.
• Development of a new strategy resulting in a Report of GloPID-R's Scientific Advisory Group about COVID-19 research priorities until 2023 and the subsequent GloPID-R Co-Chairs recommendations.
• Regional hub development: the above mentioned new strategy resulted in preparing the development of regional hubs, starting in Asia-Pacific and in Africa with a four-step approach (Regional Advisory Group, Mapping of regional funders, Survey and selected interviews, Regional conference).
• New and improved communication strategy and tools developed and implemented, including a revamped website, a motion design film and active social media activity.
• Governance: All main above achievements were underpinned by intense work on strengthening the governance framework, including an independent report to ascertain GloPID-R´s current value proposition, proposals made to Members on changes and improvements for a revised GloPID-R´s governance, instating a Scientific Advisory Board.
• Extension of the membership, resulted with GloPID-R involving 33 members and 7 Observers as of December 2022 (compared with 28 members and 2 Observers in December 2019).
• One Health: GloPID-R with STAR IDAZ (the International Research Consortium on animal health) have explored and prepared the ground to launch a joint working group in early 2023.
• Joint funding calls: GloPID-R reflected on existing and innovative coordinated funding mechanisms, identified the model experienced by the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) and prepared the ground for opening a first joint call in 2023.
• Contributions from other Working Groups (Research in LMICs; Data sharing; Social Sciences) to enrich the above work achievements (on research priority setting in LMICs; joint funding options; Clinical Trials Funders Roadmap).
• Around 240 main meetings organised along these 3 years to foster and enhance coordination and collaboration among GloPID-R membership and with external stakeholders.
• Successful application for further EU funding of GloPID-R Secretariat for 2023-2025 and preparation of the transfer of the secretariat coordination from its original base at Fondation Mérieux to Charité University Medicine Centre for Global Health starting January 2023.
