24/10/2022
GloPID-R General Assembly 2022
GloPID-R members, observers and invited guests were enthusiastic to meet face to face at the annual General Assembly for the first time in three years. This pivotal event for our funders’ coalition was generously hosted on October 19 and 20 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with the organizational and logistics support of the DLR Project Management Agency.
Participants had the privilege and the pleasure of meeting inside the building that houses the BMBF offices in Berlin, with an impressive view of the dome of the Reichstag building and the River Spree. Two days of exchange and debate featured high-quality, informative presentations. Counting in-person and remote attendees, a total of 88 people took part. The full GloPID-R Executive Board was in attendance along with several members of the Secretariat. GloPID-R members and observers from across the globe, as well as key stakeholders including HIRO and WHO representatives, contributed to the success of this year’s general assembly.
Following the welcome addresses, the meeting began with a high-level overview of the pandemic preparedness and response landscape. Speakers emphasized continuing high rates of COVID-19 transmission as well as outbreaks of monkeypox, Ebola and Sudan Virus Disease. This served to highlight the importance, now more than ever, of coordinating pandemic preparedness and response efforts globally.
Seven sessions addressed GloPID-R’s key priorities for 2023 and beyond, including the living funders roadmap to improve clinical trial coordination; Pandemic PACT, the new funding tracking tool; the growing importance of One Health and the working group that GloPID-R is undertaking jointly with WOAH/STAR-IDAZ; implementation of the regional hub strategy with updates from the directors of our first two hubs; and coordinated funding, with the GACD model as a potential template for GloPID-R. A discussion on GloPID-R business and organizational questions took place before the close of the meeting. For the complete program, see below.
A stone’s throw away from the venue for the General Assembly is the Charité Mitte Campus, home to the future hosts of GloPID-R. As most of our members are aware, the Charité Center for Global Health will be coordinating the GloPID-R Secretariat from 2023 to 2025 with the continued funding and support of the European Commission.
“Nobody wants to be coordinated but everyone calls for coordination.”
Acknowledging the paradoxical nature of GloPID-R’s mandate, many stakeholders emphasized that while coordination is not always easy, we cannot afford to be without it. As GloPID-R’s role and impact in the global coordination of research funders becomes clearer and stronger, participants were able to go home with a renewed commitment and key take-aways to consider how we can address the daunting global challenges posed by infectious disease outbreaks: namely, by working together better.
