COHRED Colloquium 2013 report: Investment in global health research must grow

Jul 9 2013

COHRED holds semi-annual Colloquia to bring together a range of stakeholders - from researchers and policymakers to industry representatives and NGOS - to have a free and frank discussion about salient global health issues. COHRED Colloquium 2013, held in collaboration with the CIH, focused on increasing investment in research for health as a critical part of investing in health overall. The newly published report of this event captures the informal narrative from two days of open discussions. The content of this report follows.

Funding for research is always a hot topic at any global health conference, and controversial when immediate services such as healthcare delivery is needed.  Who shoulders responsibility for funding R&D, the best way to channel research funding, and which research areas are most in need of money are questions that scientists and policymakers are constantly discussing.

From discussions at the Colloquium, it is clear that investment in global health research must grow. Investing in research and innovation is a tested pathway for countries to grow and develop, increasing health and socio-economic development.  However, discussants also noted that it must become sustainable: This means that funders must take greater care in how they spend their money to safeguard longer term impact: taking greater care to also invest in health care delivery and research infrastructure and capacity. Low and middle-income countries need to be able to better direct their own healthcare agendas, take greater ownership of their research programmes, boosting health and socio-economic development for their people.

We may have amassed an enormous knowledge base about preventing and treating disease, but sustainable solutions continue to elude us, and those that do exist are at risk of becoming useless due to drug resistance. What's more, our understanding of how best to tackle poor health in specific political and geographical contexts - i.e., operational and implementation research - is nowhere near as well developed as it needs to be.

This report documents that investing in research remains a vital, but neglected strategy for improving global health and boosting development. However, simply calling for more money is not enough. We need to know what to spend the money on, how to spend it, who should be spending it, and who will carry out the research. These are difficult questions with no easy answers; meaning dialogue on these issues such as at Colloquium 2013 is urgently needed.

We believe that the report of this event makes a convincing case for sustainably increasing investment in research and innovation for health.