Partnering with the research community allows us to tap into the latest information and thinking from the scientific, medical and product delivery communities. At the same time, it keeps the research community abreast of our policy directions and programmatic needs.

The relationship has repeatedly enabled us to deliver on our mission by generating and communicating the evidence base required by global and national decision-makers to argue in favour of introducing new and underused vaccines. This includes information about disease burden, vaccines' effectiveness and safety, and health economics.

The research and technical institutes constituency has one seat on the Gavi Board.

ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT AND INTRODUCTION PLANS

In 2002, Gavi funds set up two Accelerated Development and Introduction Plans (ADIPs) to put two new life-saving vaccines on the agendas in both donor and developing countries:

• The Pneumo-ADIP, led by Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, which focused on pneumococcal vaccines;
• The Rotavirus Vaccine Programme, led by Seattle-based PATH, WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (US CDC), which concentrated on rotavirus vaccines.

HIB INITIATIVE

In 2005, we reached out to research and technical institutes to help raise awareness of the disease burden of Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and the existence of effective life-saving vaccines.

The resultant Hib Initiative drew on the expertise of the US CDC, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Johns Hopkins University and WHO to play a lead role in laying the groundwork in developing countries for a dramatic uptake of Hib vaccines.

By 2008, as the ADIPs and the Hib Initiative concluded their work, Gavi recognised the continuing need for a coordinated effort to support countries in making evidence-based decisions to introduce new vaccines, including those against rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, and to create a platform for introducing other new vaccines.

ACCELERATED VACCINE INTRODUCTION INITIATIVE

To provide this support, we created the Accelerated Vaccine Introduction initiative (AVI) in 2008. The AVI was a partnership with WHO, UNICEF and a consortium of technical partners including PATH, the Johns Hopkins University, the US CDC, Aga Khan University (Pakistan), International Vaccine Institute (South Korea), Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Norway) and University Of The Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa).

The partners contributed to several aspects of AVI including:

• conducting a series of studies generating information (safety, immunogenicity, efficacy and health economic data) to inform policy decisions;
• generating long-term strategic demand and supply forecasts for new vaccines;
• supporting advocacy for new vaccines, including the need for funding from global donors to finance the purchase of live-saving vaccines.