Seminar ‘Pandemic Preparedness – No whole-of-society approach without society’

In March 2023, the European Global Health Research Institutes Network (EGHRIN) organized its first seminar with the title “Pandemic preparedness: A whole-of-society approach”. The objective of the seminar was to address pandemic preparedness with a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary lens, including societal aspects not so often considered in the traditional debates about pandemic preparedness. EGHRIN believes in improving the effectiveness of pandemic preparedness by shifting from an epidemiology-centered strategy, that relies mainly on microbiological information to tackle the pandemic, to a more multidimensional societal approach in which global health is only a subsystem. The event hosted speakers such as Professor Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Professor Heidi Larson, Dr. Leesa Lin and Professor Ana Antic, and attracted a registration of 150 participants. Three major themes were addressed at the meeting.