WHO Releases New Guidance on the Ethics of Health Research Priority Setting

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new guidance document to support ethical decision-making in health research priority setting. As research budgets tighten, the guidance offers a timely framework to ensure that decisions about which health research to fund are made systematically, transparently, and in line with ethical principles—particularly justice.

GloPID-R contributed to the development of this guidance in its role as a key convenor of global funders focused on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Our network brings together those investing in research where needs are urgent and resources are constrained. Supporting ethically grounded research prioritization is core to GloPID-R’s mission of promoting equitable, coordinated, and impactful responses to infectious disease threats.

To help make the case for allocating scarce resources more efficiently—and to highlight the ethical responsibility of decision-makers to consider what others are doing or planning—the new WHO guidance references a key GloPID-R resource: ‘Lessons Learnt from Developing and Applying Research Priorities During the COVID-19 Pandemic’, produced by GloPID-R’s Low- and Middle-Income Countries Working Group. This report reflects on real-world priority setting during the pandemic and provides practical insights to inform more ethical and coordinated research investment. Health research priority setting is crucial for allocating limited resources—funding, time, staff, and infrastructure—effectively.

The WHO guidance aims to address these issues by summarizing current good practices and providing a foundation that can evolve through implementation experience. Its key message is clear: Decisions about what research to conduct, promote, or support must be made explicitly and guided by ethical considerations. There is a moral imperative to engage in just and transparent health research priority setting—one that ensures no one is left behind.

A companion casebook was also developed alongside the new WHO guidance, featuring real-world case studies that illustrate how ethical principles can be applied in a variety of health research priority-setting contexts. While the case studies do not represent perfect applications, they offer valuable opportunities to reflect on ethical considerations in practice; the fictional scenarios, based on real situations, include recommendations to help decision-makers apply these principles more explicitly and effectively. The casebook also features a case on research prioritization work on long COVID during the pandemic which GloPID-R contributed to, written by our Scientific Director, Alice Norton.

More Information

Learn more about GloPID-R’s LMIC Working Group

Read LMIC WG’s Output: Lessons Learnt from Developing and Applying Research Priorities During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflections from the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness

Further Reading

Norton A, Olliaro P, Sigfrid L, Carson G, Paparella G, Hastie C et al. Long COVID: tackling a multifaceted condition requires a multidisciplinary approach. Lancet Infect Dis. 2021;21(5):601–2