Completed Infection & Immunity Public Health & Healthcare

A collaborative platform and network for responsive infectious diseases bioethics research

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Associated organisations Johns Hopkins University · University of Oxford Europe PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding £2.0M
Period Jan 2021 — Dec 2024

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A new Wellcome-funded network will create a system for delivering real-time ethical guidance during infectious disease outbreaks, rather than leaving policymakers to scramble for advice after a crisis hits. When a new pathogen emerges, decisions about quarantine, vaccine prioritisation, and resource allocation must be made quickly, often with incomplete information and under intense public pressure. The current system lacks a coordinated mechanism to identify and analyse the ethical dimensions of these choices before they become urgent. This network aims to fill that gap by linking bioethicists, clinicians, public health officials, and policymakers across high-resource and low- and middle-income countries. It will establish an Infectious Disease Ethics Forum for rapid discussion of emerging issues, a collaborative network to flag problems needing policy responses, and a programme of longer-term global health ethics research. If successful, the platform could change how international bodies like the WHO and national governments handle the ethical trade-offs inherent in outbreak response—from triage protocols to equitable vaccine distribution. The project is primarily about building infrastructure for responsive, collaborative ethics work rather than generating fundamental scientific knowledge.

View original technical description
We seek to establish a research network and collaborative platform for rapidly identifying and analysing ethical and policy issues arising in infectious disease treatment, research, response, and preparedness, and engaging in research on the profound ethical challenges presented by infectious diseases across the globe. The platform and network will provide real-time ethics and policy support, create a mechanism for collaborative responsive research as well as forward-looking projects with longer timeframes and engaging with crucial stakeholders from across high-resource and LMICs, all focusing on the critically important area of infectious disease and global health bioethics. In addition to being responsive to the needs as identified by the network, we expect the platform and network to be available to respond to needs identified by the WHO Public Health Emergency Ethics Preparedness and Response (PHEEPR) Network and other global bioethics efforts. The Platform and Network will be structured into two related and overlapping sets of activities, which will complement and build on each other. These will comprise: an Infectious Disease Ethics Forum for discussion of emerging ethical issues, a Collaborative Network to identify important issues for policy response and research; and, a programme of global health ethics research focusing on infectious disease.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Jeffrey Kahn (EPMC Awardee)Michael Parker (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

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Original classification

Discretionary Award – C&S

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