Global Health innovation is about to take Brussels by storm. We are winding down on what has been an important year for international development – we’ve seen the agreement on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, celebrated the European Year for Development, and are now witness to the negotiations in Paris on the future of climate action. Before we turn the lights off on 2015 however, Brussels will host this week a series of events focused on global health, and more particularly on global health innovation.
Global Health Innovation and MNH
First up is the European Commission’s flagship event on the contribution of research and development to the challenges of maternal and newborn health. To mark the start of the conference, DSW has teamed up with several partner organisations to publish a policy brief on the issue, as well as highlighting the challenges and obstacles that researchers in this area face. We hope that it will be food for thought for Commissioner Moedas and his team as they debate the issues in Brussels. You can read the policy brief and its conclusions here. Feel free to let us know what you think!
This evening, December 8, DSW together with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and IS Global, will launch the World Malaria Report 2015. The report, published by the WHO, tracks our progress in responding to malaria and identifies the gaps and challenges we need to face. We are in a critical phase in the fight against malaria, and with a commitment in the 2030 Agenda to eradicate the disease in the next 15 years, we should be looking to how we can harness innovation to achieve this. The report will go live tomorrow morning, so follow us on social media for the key data and conclusions from the report.
Global Health Innovation and Horizon 2020
Tomorrow, Wednesday, is the main event. As part of the European Innovation Summit, DSW is organising a breakfast event ‘Is Horizon 2020 fit for purpose? The example of Global Health R&D’, to look at the EU role in advancing Global Health R&D. For this purpose we have invited a British Masters student who is being treated for TB and going to share her experience of living with TB, two representatives of Product Development Partnerships, presenting their experience with EU funding mechanisms. Furthermore a study on EU support to Global Health R&D will be presented and discussed with the Deputy Director General from DG Research. As two prominent MEPs pointed out last week for World AIDS Day, there is a huge amount to be gained by investing EU funding in global health innovation to tackle the most difficult of public health emergencies.
On a second occasion that day in the afternoon, the session ‘EU added value from Innovation: Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World’, will further expand on the concept of EU Commissioner Moedas, with examples from the public as well as the private sector, highlighting the importance all three aspects for the EU to have Open Innovation and Open Science while being Open to the World. The session will demonstrate the two sides of added value, first the benefit for the EU, which includes new partnerships, markets and job growth. On the other hand, the contribution, the EU is providing to sustainable and human development including fields such as health, energy and environment.
We will be tweeting from the events and the EIS throughout the day, so follow us on Twitter at @dsw_worldwide for the latest updates. We’ll also be sharing with you videos, interviews and other articles throughout the week on the topic of global health innovation, so stay tuned!
