Health Research Colloquium Calls On Countries To Invest More In R&D

By Rachel Marusak Hermann for Intellectual Property Watch

During the recent Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) Colloquium 2013, participants highlighted the value of research and development in supporting public health and the importance of building self-reliance for countries through government investment, according to organisers. Some of the themes discussed during the event will be included in a report on public health policy, which will be published in The Lancet later this year.

Twenty years after the release of the World Bank’s Report on “Investing in Health” and the founding of COHRED, policy experts, researchers, industry leaders, and public health advocates gathered in Geneva from 26-27 March at the COHRED Colloquium 2013 to discuss the contributions of research for health and how to gather momentum for future investment to support health and development in low- and middle-income countries.

Although the meeting, described by organisers as an “un-conference,” was not aiming at consensus, a few key themes emerged. Participants widely agreed that countries should increase their own investments in research for health to attract donor funding and ensure fairer collaboration. Additionally, in the context of the global economic crisis, participants also took note of an emerging trend among donors toward implementation research, which looks at how to effectively translate findings into practice, and suggested that governments should do the same.

“With less funding available, governments increasingly have to justify additional spending on health research, show the value of investment and increase efficiency,” Danny Edwards, a COHRED policy analyst, told Intellectual Property Watch. “There is an increasing call to look at the knowledge and technology interventions we already have, and invest in research to examine why they are or not working, and focus on optimising them.”

These topics and other colloquium themes will feed into a report on current and future public health policies, which will be published in The Lancet in December 2013.