November 20, 2024
Expert advisors to the BEAT COVID-19 research consortium have reported the consortium’s research and given recommendations based on lessons learned during Australia’s research response to COVID-19.
The recommendations for strengthening Australia’s pandemic research preparedness and response were:
1. Linking translational research to decision-making through a national health and medical research strategy
Pandemic research underpinned by a national strategy would support an effective health system response and drive best practice in public health and clinical care.
2. Capitalising on existing platforms and networks for addressing urgent research needs
Pre-established research partnerships and networks enable rapid research initiation but require long-term investment.
3. Creating and maintaining an enabling environment for urgent research
Systemic and permanent institutional and process changes are needed to facilitate urgent research.
4. Enabling responsive funding for research collaboration
Responsive funding mechanisms, including philanthropy, are a key research enabler for addressing emerging threats.
5. Integrating research outputs into health practice and decision-making
Ensuring that research is linked to health and social impact requires community relevance, strategic dissemination and implementation of results and ongoing evaluation.
Read the full article
The BEAT COVID-19 research consortium was funded in 2020 by the Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) to improve and accelerate the Australian public health response. Researchers were drawn initially from two established, multi-jurisdictional National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)-funded Centres of Research Excellence – The Centre for Research Excellence on Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) and the Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on InfectiouS disease Emergencies (APPRISE) – plus two computational analytics groups. Members of the Expert Advisory Committee were drawn from the NHMRC, the tertiary education sector, federal and jurisdictional government health departments, and the community.
The full opinion piece was published in Communicable Diseases Intelligence on 23 October 2024 and presents the perspective of the BEAT COVID-19 consortium and its multi-sectoral, high-level Expert Advisory Committee.