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STEaPP’s PIU together with VaxHub Global and VaxHub Sustainable hosted the VaxHub Futures Forum on Pandemic Preparedness during UCL’s Festival of Engineering. The event brought together over 50 participants from academia, government, industry, funding and advisory bodies to showcase the hubs’ vaccine manufacturing research and explore potential future scenarios for pandemic preparedness through ³Ù³ó±ðÌýFutures Forum methodology, developed by Dr Ine Steenmans. The Futures Forum is an innovative and adaptable knowledge exchange format which uses ‘futures thinking’ to guide participants through a joint exploration of futures of a particular policy topic.

The report published today compiles insights that emerged from the participants’ discussions during the VaxHub Futures Forum, as they were asked to place themselves in the year 2030 and to reflect on their hopes, fears and the challenges associated with pandemic preparedness. The key themes stemming from discussions and highlighted in the report include equitable access to vaccine technologies and vaccine manufacturing capabilities; public health systems resilience; knowledge exchange, interdisciplinarity and collaboration; and public engagement and trust in science.

Participants also identified several priority areas of action to ensure better future pandemic preparedness which emphasise:

• the importance of equity as a fundamental principle to vaccine development and manufacturing
• the need to increase resilience of national health systems
• the centrality of collective knowledge and expertise
• maintaining momentum and the need to learn lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic
• building trust in vaccine development and enhancing scientific literacy

Dr Ranna Eardley-Patel Coalition, Sr External Stakeholder and Project Lead, CEPI, who was the VaxHub Futures Forum keynote speaker, said: ‘Pandemic preparedness is a complex topic covering technical, policy, socioeconomic and equitable access considerations. This excellent ongoing collaboration between the VaxHubs and the Policy Impact Unit is vital to ensure a holistic vision can be defined, and that experts can co-create from multiple perspectives.’

This work comes at a pivotal moment. Against the backdrop of the Mpox outbreak and the ongoing negotiations for the WHO Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Accord, the global focus on pandemic preparedness has intensified, as illustrated by the which took place at the end of July.

Building on the insights from this report, PIU and the VaxHubs will continue to collaborate with policy and industry partners to explore and propose effective policy solutions for future pandemic preparedness.

You can read the full report here.

For further information on this work, please contact Anca Tacu (a.tacu@ucl.ac.uk).