Impacting Global Health: Our Vision for the Future

A massive divide separates the spark of health innovation from the first communities and populations it will transform. Those of us that work in global health preoccupy ourselves with narrowing and bridging that divide. While there are many places to intervene, whether upstream or downstream, common to all of our work is the question of impact. Resources are always limited, so whether we are testing new compounds, training healthcare providers, treating patients, managing supply chains or writing policy papers, we all have an interest in maximising investments in a way that will improve the health of people, systems, economies and societies.

For many years Policy Cures Research has offered the global health community rich data and insights on the state of the product R&D landscape. This has been a focused, rigorous view of the innovation lifecycle, but it has also been, by our own admission, fairly descriptive. In recent years though, we’ve been stepping forward, out from behind-the-scenes, and into a new, more vocal role in the global health R&D community, conducting research and developing tools to inspire change. Our new name, Impact Global Health, reflects this shift and signals our continued direction of travel. In addition to continued work on the what, the future of our work will focus much more on the so what and how of global health R&D investment and policy making.

If we think of our work as a pyramid, data forms its base. In this domain, we will focus on generating the rigorous, foundational global health R&D funding, pipeline and impact evidence, upon which informed advocacy and decisions can be made with confidence. We intend to expand our view of the landscape though and explore ways to collect and link new types of data.    In the middle layer of our pyramid are tools: the dashboards, portals and visualisations that allow you to interact with data on your own and make the decisions and build the investments cases that suit your needs. We will continue to get smarter about how we design these digital platforms, convening experts across the sector to agree on the metrics, data cuts and interfaces that give the clearest-eyed, actionable views of the global health landscape.  Finally, at the top, are sharp, focused insights; analysis of the data and thought leadership, aligned to the changing needs of the global health sector. Our reports, insight series, resource hubs, and opinion pieces won’t just give you a lay of the land, they will guide you in traversing a complex ecosystem and making optimal decisions.

We are deeply committed to embodying our new brand and working with experts and thought leaders across the sector to Impact Global Health.