Research & Development
Purpose
Launched in 2021, the R&D Task Force develops tools to help Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) countries and donors make a clear case for the linkage between R&D capacity-building and health security targets, sets clear roadmaps for strengthening R&D capacity-building, and holds dialogues that help identify and highlight key bottlenecks for decision-makers. The R&D Task Force also actively coordinates with other relevant Action Packages, such as those on antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic diseases, biosafety & biosecurity, legal preparedness, laboratory systems, and sustainable finance, as well as other GHSA Task Forces to ensure that R&D of medical countermeasures is integrated into those forums.
R&D assessment tool
The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), which serves as the secretariat of the R&D Task Force, has developed an R&D capacity assessment tool for GHSA members. This tool, which was built after a careful landscape of the current health security-related evaluation and metrics ecosystem and several dialogues with experts and other stakeholders, is meant to serve as a voluntary self-assessment of R&D capacity for countries. Ultimately, the aim is to help drive R&D capacity-building investments, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and eventually, weave these metrics into a future version of the Joint External Evaluation.
Primary Ongoing Activities
A report tracking the progress from the pilot year of the Task Force can be found here. Over the coming year, the R&D Task Force plans to:
- Clarify the links between R&D capacity-building efforts and health security, including with the International Health Regulations (IHR)/Joint External Evaluation (JEE) and to scope or focus the Task Force’s work.
- Strengthen assessment of country and regional research capacity, identify gaps, and highlight indicators and metrics that can track progress for GHSA members as local R&D capabilities are enhanced.
- Encourage the identification and implementation of new actions from public- and private-sector GHSA partners to strengthen R&D for health security.
- Collaborate with GHSA Action Packages and other Task Forces to ensure that R&D for medical countermeasures is more formally integrated into those discussions and look for opportunities to connect with external partners to break down silos.
- Deepen international collaboration on health security R&D by convening relevant actors to identify barriers to communication and collaboration and develop road maps for improvement, including in relation to financing, data-sharing, and the coordination of targeted research calls.
- Find ways to connect the work of the R&D Task Force to the sustainable financing dialogues and new mechanisms like the Pandemic Fund.