Research for Health
Research for health is a global endeavour, and WHO has a unique role to play in ensuring that these efforts can help improve health for all.
WHO provides leadership, calling on the wider scientific community to engage behind global health concerns. This is based on a deep understanding of the needs of countries, and rigorous assessment by international experts.
Anticipating scientific, technological, and epidemiological shifts
To stay on top of scientific and technological advancements and epidemiological trends, WHO must anticipate new trends, technologies, research, and discoveries in medical and public health.
Through continuous, rigorous, and systematic horizon scanning, the Science Division assesses and identifies emerging issues, for early identification of potential health benefits or threats. It actively prospects for scientific and technological innovations that could change the equation on advancing health.
Science in action: the WHO Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing
This committee examines the scientific, ethical, social, and legal challenges associated with human genome editing, and makes recommendations on the ethical framework for research and application of this technology.
Setting a global research agenda to address gaps, emerging areas, and country priorities
With the needs of Member States at its core, the Science Division provides leadership to identify priorities for research, technological advancements, health systems and behavior-change interventions.Truly useful innovations are not simply new; they are designed explicitly with the needs of the user in mind. By analyzing gaps, inequities, emerging areas and country priorities, the WHO research agenda anticipates the complex issues affecting people’s health and supports the discovery of innovative solutions to address them.
Science in action: R&D Blueprint for dementia research.
In 2017, the World Health Assembly adopted a Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia. A key component of this plan was a call to action for research and innovation. To move this forward, the Science Division is developing an R&D Blueprint for dementia research.
Strengthening confidence in science
More than ever, science is in the public eye, and trust in science and medical technologies is at a crossroads, a situation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on expertise from Member States, WHO is mobilizing the best scientists across disciplines, ensuring that global health research is guided by highest ethical standards, and stimulating measures to tackle spread of disinformation and provide credible information to the public.The Science Division supports countries in developing their scientific expertise and research capacities and facilitating the development of new and innovative research methodologies. This will improve understanding of the determinants of health, health systems, and the transformative potential of innovations in health.
Science in action: WHO Science Council
By convening top scientists from around the world, the Science Council can evaluate urgent, high priority scientific issues and provide input and guidance. It can identify the pressing issues that WHO needs to address, including global health threats, and innovations with potential impact on global health.
In biosafety level II laboratory setting, a medical scientist is working on RT-PCR method for the testing of the novel coronavirus at Department of Medical Sciences.
Foresight and emerging technologies
We try to get ahead of the curve by understanding what is needed to improve health for all in the future, and where the best new ideas are emerging.
Advances in science and technology hold great promise for new ways to address global health and support healthier populations worldwide. WHO engages in horizon scanning across the science and technology landscape. It also supports countries in doing their own futures and foresight exercises to understand their future needs. The aim of foresight is to identify and connect known, new, or emerging issues that could significantly impact global health within the next two decades.
Emerging technologies offer great health opportunities but also pose potentially significant challenges. The WHO Foresight function provides ongoing monitoring of emerging technologies to spot potential risks and come up with strategies for prevention and mitigation.
Research prioritization and support, R&D optimization
We identify gaps in current research priorities, and promote and support research that can best address unmet needs.
WHO has a unique role in supporting research for health, because we can help ensure health research is directed towards the biggest unmet needs in global health. We do this by sharing upstream research information from clinical trials, and research and development pipelines, and by providing guidance for research priority setting exercises.
WHO can determine strategic public health areas and identify key research and development needs. It then produces a clear target product profile to promote research and development that will be of most benefit. By mapping existing target product profiles in the Target Product Profile Directory and developing new ones based on identified public health needs, WHO steers innovation in support of improved health for all.
Product developers seek advice from WHO on whether or not their product likely has value for public health. In this way, WHO, expedites development of health related products, including novel therapeutics, diagnostics, and repurposing existing products.
Research for Health works with researchers and innovators to ensure they are aligned with the Prequalification Team and WHO’s technical departments on the package of evidence that will be needed to secure prequalification or a WHO policy recommendation. This process informs clinical trials on life-saving medical products, technologies and processes. A coordinated scientific advice process is currently in pilot phase.
Health ethics and governance
By putting ethics at the heart of decision-making and providing guidance on governance, WHO promotes this ethos within WHO and throughout the global health community.
In addition to supporting projects conducted by WHO, we are often called upon by development partners at country level for our expertise in global health ethics. Our Health Ethics and Governance unit produces guidance and tools for Member States on ethics in research and public health. Inside and outside WHO, it also helps researchers and public health specialists navigate ethical challenges posed by their projects.
Research policy for access
The best ideas are not just the brightest, but the one that actually get implemented and make an impact. WHO provides leadership on policies in research to ensure access and scale-up.
Having the right research policy is a key step towards ensuring health research has actual impact. This means that research priorities match real-world problems. At WHO, Research for Health works to ensure that the needs of countries are clearly articulated, and then communicated to the research community.
At WHO we promote an end-to-end approach in research policy. Working with local health systems and communities is needed to better understand the delivery and uptake of new products and to achieve widespread and equitable access. WHO can help broker multinational studies, foster regulatory harmonization, and promote dialogue among all stakeholders.
Taking knowledge from evidence to impact
Through a global network for evidence-informed health policy-making and tailored country support, WHO brings together researchers, policy-makers and implementers to translate evidence into improved health policies and programmes.
Public health problems are often complex and require nuanced, context-specific solutions and tailored implementation strategies. To make a difference for patients, communities and medical professionals, reliable evidence on how to tackle a health issue needs to be synthesized, reflected in a local context, and effectively communicated between researchers and decision-makers.
Through a set of field-tested and user-friendly tools, the Evidence to Policy and Impact Unit supports countries in bridging the gap between public health research, policy, and programme. Evidence briefs for policy and rapid response mechanisms put key research findings into context and place them at the fingertips of decision-makers. Policy dialogues provide researchers, policy-makers, and partner organizations with a forum to rally behind evidence-informed policy options and effective health interventions, discuss the findings, and share their own experiences and values. Citizen engagement strategies give voice to the beliefs and perspectives of individuals and communities, upholding accountability and democratic deliberation as core principles of equitable health care.
WHO’s global Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) is a key initiative building sustainable and resilient capacity for evidence-informed decision-making and knowledge translation with Member States and in WHO offices at country, regional and international level. With over 15 years of experience and active teams in close to 50 countries, EVIPNet has successfully strengthened national health systems and emergency response capacity around the globe. The network also forms a vivid community of practice, facilitating decentralized peer-support among members and offering a treasure trove of successful strategies in evidence-informed health policy-making.
Research for Health within WHO
WHO’s Research for Health Department supports teams and units across the entire organization to establish their own research priorities. It helps people working in different parts of our global network connect the dots and create a better coordinated research response. This in turns helps keep WHO on track, ensuring that the research done within WHO is aligned with the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and our own Triple Billion Targets of 1 billion more people benefitting from universal health coverage, 1 billion more people better protected from health emergencies, and 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being.
Research for Health: our role in the global public health research community
WHO’s technical units are just one part of a global web of research for health, encompassing academia, national and regional research bodies, product development partnerships and the private sector. WHO helps to provide global guidance for research priority setting. Our global, regional and country-level reach means we can help to clearly articulate the needs of the countries, and we are uniquely well-placed to broker multinational research efforts.
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