Pandemic preparedness and response: Maintaining and enhancing the preparatory work for a co-funded European partnership for pandemic preparedness

Expected Outcome:

This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination 3 “Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Investments in research and innovation on pandemic preparedness are balanced and better co-ordinated along the whole research continuum from basic research, over pre-clinical research to clinical research;
• Research funders, policymakers and the research community dispose of an enhanced research and innovation framework for the European partnership for pandemic preparedness, including the Partnership’s objectives, governance and ways of working/operationalisation;
• Research funders, policymakers and the research community are aligned towards common objectives and have a common understanding of the long-term Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for the Partnership;
• Research funders, policymakers and the research community work towards a valued network of clinical trial sites that has the capacity to implement well-coordinated large-scale multi-country quality trials in different target populations, which are able to smoothly transition to public health interventions relevant for cross-border health threats in response to a public health emergency;
• Healthcare providers, European and international stakeholders engage with an extended number of EU-wide appropriate partners through the research and innovation framework for the partnership.

Scope:

The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated how unilateral research initiatives may lead to a fragmented research landscape, with substantial room for efficiency gains in the development of the highly needed evidence to guide policy actions when facing an emergency. A coordination and support action^[1] is working towards improving the EU’s preparedness to predict and respond to emerging infectious health threats by better coordinating funding for research and innovation at EU, national (and regional) level towards common objectives and an agreed Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. This work should be complemented by efforts towards establishing, maintaining and enhancing a network of ever-warm clinical trials sites and infrastructures for clinical research, ready to be pivoted in case of a pandemic or epidemic episode. In addition, this work should be extended to additional partners, primarily from the EU and Horizon Europe associated countries. Participation from widening countries should be ensured, promoting an inclusive approach in the design and governance of the partnership.

The partnership will contribute to building a coherent European Research Area (ERA), enabling Member States, Associated Countries and the European Commission to rapidly and jointly support research and innovation in pandemic preparedness.

The Partnership is expected to continue to build on existing pandemic preparedness networks and research infrastructures and work in synergy with the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).

Proposals should include all of the following activities:

• Provide administrative and organisational support to prepare, ensure a smooth start and transition towards the European partnership for pandemic preparedness that will eventually take over these tasks;
• Actively engage with relevant stakeholders and initiatives in the area of pandemic preparedness, ensuring collaboration and coordination, and avoiding duplication; e.g. the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, GloPID-R, WHO R&D blueprint, ACT Accelerator, etc.;
• Implement strong communication and dissemination activities at EU level and in Member States and Associated Countries, on the purpose, activities and outputs of the European partnership for pandemic preparedness, ensuring a continuous dialogue, both outside and during epidemic/pandemic episodes;
• As relevant, apply a cross-cutting, interdisciplinary One Health approach.

This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

[1] Project BE READY / grant agreement number 101057795, funded under topic HORIZON-HLTH-2021-DISEASE-04-06 “Building a European partnership for pandemic preparedness”.