*Now closed* The Pandemic Institute Aviva-sponsored funding call: “Recover” 

The Pandemic Institute (TPI) has launched its second funding call  thanks to a generous donation from Aviva to fund research into how we recover from pandemics and emerging infections. This investment by Aviva aims to build strong, sustainable, resilient communities that are better prepared for future crisis events on the scale of COVID-19 pandemic. The work to be supported will sit within the Recover pillar, one of five strategic themes of focus for TPI.

Applications for projects with budgets between £10,000 – £50,000 are invited from investigators based at TPI founding partner institutions. These include the University of Liverpool, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool City Council, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Knowledge Quarter Liverpool. Applications from other academic partners are also welcomed, as long as they include co-applicants from TPI founding partners

Specifically, this funding scheme is seeking to support activity that covers the following four topics:

(1) Resilience planning with local communities, e.g. “What was the real impact of the pandemic through the experience of communities, including sections of the community whose voices are often ignored or not heard?”
(2) Understanding the impact of mortality and morbidity in crisis situations, e.g. “Did the pandemic create a mortality jump or cause a mortality shift in different countries?”
(3) Sustainable business models in a post-pandemic world e.g. “What is the effect of the pandemic on insurance market sustainability?”
(4) Pricing pandemics: new mathematical models for insurance e.g. “How can we estimate medical costs during a pandemic or catastrophic event?”

The Pandemic Institute Student Excellence Awards

A unique collaboration between The Pandemic Institute in Liverpool and leading health care company DAM Health is returning.

The Student Excellence Awards is back for a second intake for 2023, with PhD students from the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine encouraged to apply.

Five new awards of £5000 will be available for PhD students on a competitive basis. The Student Excellence Awards 2023 will help boost the career development opportunities of each winner, enabling them to attend international conferences or take up world-leading training and development opportunities. Applications with international ambitions are welcomed to help showcase Liverpool’s pivotal place in global health. The awards ceremony takes place at The Spine in February 2023.

*Now Closed* The Pandemic Institute Emerging Threats Funding Call: Monkeypox

The Pandemic Institute has awarded nearly £500,000 to Liverpool researchers to help tackle the growing threat of monkeypox. The viral infection is usually found in West and Central Africa but an increasing number of cases have been identified elsewhere including the UK (standing at 2,208 confirmed cases as of 21 July 2022*) and the World Health Organization has now classified the outbreak as a “public health emergency of international concern”, putting monkeypox on par with diseases such as Covid-19, Ebola and polio.

 The projects include research on the origins of the outbreak in Africa, studies of transmission and spread, development of rapid diagnostics, investigation of the body’s immune response to help vaccine development, studies of new drug treatments, and understanding of stigma around the disease.