Organized by HADEA (the Health and Digital Executive Agency), the objective of the meeting, which was attended by the BE READY coordinator, WP6 leader and a representative of WP5, was to trigger cooperation and networking among projects working on similar issues. Representatives from HADEA, as well as from the European Commission (DG Research and Innovation, DG Santé, HERA) and the ECDC, were present, making the event a fruitful occasion for discussion and mutual knowledge.
BE-READY presented its activities during one of the parallel break out meetings together with other 3 projects coming from Destination 3 (Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden) of Cluster 1 - Health of Horizon Europe.
The other 3 projects in pandemic preparedness presented were:
- ESCAPE: Efficient and rapidly SCAlable EU-wide evidence-driven Pandemic response plans through dynamic Epidemic data assimilation
- PANDASIA: Pandemic literacy and viral zoonotic spillover risk at the frontline of disease emergence in Southeast Asia to improve pandemic preparedness
- PCR-4-ALL: Impact and viability of a novel mass PCR testing method as a pandemic-fighting strategy
The event proved to be a very good opportunity for BE READY to establish connection with these sister initiatives, in particular by exchanging on respective objectives and potential synergies.