The Role of Research and Innovation in an Age of Pandemics

In this IIEA armchair discussion, Professor Peter Piot, Special Advisor on COVID-19 to the President of the European Commission, focuses on lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic at EU-level from a health policy perspective to evaluate the role of research and innovation (R&I) during the health crisis. Professor Piot discusses the value of investment in R&I projects and initiatives to address diagnostics, treatment and vaccines, epidemiology, preparedness and response to future outbreaks. In his role as Special Advisor to President Ursula von der Leyen, he offers insights on the EU’s role in supporting global efforts to detect, prepare and respond to future health crises. 

About the Speaker: 

Professor Baron Peter Piot MD PhD KCMG is the Handa Professor of Global Health and former Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is currently Special Advisor on COVID-19 to the President of the European Commission. Previously, Peter Piot was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (1995-2008).  

A clinician and microbiologist by training, he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976, and subsequently led pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, women’s health and infectious diseases in Africa. He has held academic positions at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp; the University of Nairobi; the University of Washington, Seattle; Imperial College London, and the College de France, Paris, and was a Senior Fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He was formerly Vice-Chair of the Global Health Innovation Technology Fund, Tokyo, and member of the Board of the Novartis Foundation, Basel.