Correspondence from the GloPID-R Research and Policy Team: Pandemic PACT announced in The Lancet

Correspondence from the GloPID-R Research and Policy Team* was published in The Lancet to coincide with the launch of Pandemic PACT, the Pandemic Preparedness Analytical Capacity and Funding Tracking programme. The new Pandemic PACT funding tracking database and interactive tool represents important progress in joint funder activity to improve preparedness for future pandemics.

Pandemic PACT aims to collate and curate global funding data continuously and map these data to relevant research agendas and policy roadmaps – for example, WHO roadmaps for priority diseases or CEPI’s 100 Days Mission. The programme has developed a broad, prospective research funding tracking tool for a wide range of priority epidemic-prone diseases and broader epidemic and pandemic research preparedness activities. In the event of future infectious disease outbreaks, Pandemic PACT will help improve the speed and coordination of research activation and evidence to facilitate decisions made by funders.

Based on lessons learnt from the COVID-19 research response, Pandemic PACT builds and expands on the achievements of the UKCDR and GloPID-R COVID-19 Research Project Tracker and the COVID CIRCLE initiative (the COVID-19 Research Coordination and Learning Initiative, started in 2020).

To facilitate ‘living’ research prioritization, Pandemic PACT has also established a Rapid Research Needs Appraisals (RRNAs) platform in collaboration with Cochrane Response and Cochrane South Africa. The platform is designed to rapidly identify gaps in evidence to inform research prioritization and coordination.

The publication in The Lancet of ‘Improving coherence of global research funding: Pandemic PACT’ marks the official launch of this programme during an event hosted by the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford on 20 March 2024.

*Authors: Alice Norton, Louise Sigfrid, Emilia Antonio, Adrian Bucher, Duduzile Ndwandwe, and the Pandemic PACT Advisory Group.

LEARN MORE

Read the Correspondence
Pandemic PACT website
GloPID-R website, Pandemic PACT
Register to attend the Pandemic PACT launch