ESSENCE on Health Research Initiative members and partners meet annually to discuss developments related to health research capacity strengthening and to identify opportunities for collaboration based on each institution’s strategy including the involvement of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
It held its 2019 annual members’ meeting from 15 to 16 April 2019, hosted by Wellcome Trust in London, United Kingdom. The participants benefited from a variety of sessions, especially the roundtable of members’ session on their current plans, projects and strategies in the next foreseeable future.
At the meeting, the group had a relatively small but diverse group of members and partners who participated in a variety of discussions on issues that bothers on investing in implementation science in LMICs; members’ capacity building roles in the area of research management; other emerging areas; and the different models for building research capacity in LMICs.
A key task of the group is to immediately finalize the draft implementation plan of the working group on developing a mechanism for reviewing investments in clinical research capacity building (WGRI) in response to the World Bank and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI) report, Money & Microbes: Strengthening Research Capacity to Prevent Epidemics.
In a resounding manner, the members renewed their commitment to continue to work together to bring changes that will allow them to fulfil their objective to strengthen research capacity for health within a sustainable health research system in LMICs. Overall, the meeting was successful, and it allowed those attending the meeting for the first time to gain a better understanding of the initiative. The next annual meeting will take place 27–29 April 2020 in Paris, France, hosted by Institut Pasteur. |  |