Liverpool announces world-leading end-to-end Pandemic Institute

Liverpool John Moores University is partnering with the city’s major health research and public organisations to launch the headquarters of the Global Pandemic Institute, committed to helping the world prevent, prepare, and respond more effectively to pandemics.

The institute is a medical, academic and civic partnership between Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Liverpool, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool City Council, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Knowledge Quarter Liverpool (KQ Liverpool), sharing the city’s unrivalled breadth of world-leading clinical, academic, public health and data-driven expertise.

The Pandemic Institute will offer world-leading clinical and research expertise across all stages of the pandemic lifecycle. It will have global reach, working across the world to deliver new science, and build preparedness for future pandemics. The aims of its work is to facilitate tangible policy, solutions and activity, which can deliver real-world impact for governments, businesses and individuals across the globe.

Super-viruses now rank among the greatest battles for humanity – and Liverpool is firmly on the frontline with its’ new Global Pandemic Institute. So why and how did our great city offer hope in the face of future viruses?

Five reasons why Liverpool

• Liverpool is unique within the Higher Education ecosystem globally, in hosting public health, medical, veterinary, tropical medicine and behavioural science schools and institutes. LJMU’s Public Health Institute specialises in educational programmes addressing health issues at all levels from policy development to service delivery. Liverpool has an unrivalled breadth of world-leading clinical and academic expertise in the domains required to deliver an end-to-end response to the challenge of both the current and future pandemics.
• We’re a world leader in COVID-19 testing.  Liverpool was the first city, globally, to undertake a city-wide smart asymptomatic COVID-19 testing pilot, followed by the large-scale pilot events on behalf of Government. 
• Liverpool has been at the centre of global pandemic research and science for many years and our city is home to the world's brightest minds in infectious diseases.  We boast a unique ecosystem available to support the work of the Pandemic Institute.
• Liverpool is a national leader in genomic sequencing, the crucial first step to understanding a pathogen and developing vaccines and treatments.
• Liverpool hosts one of only five High-Consequences Infectious Disease Units in the UK.

More information about the Pandemic Institute can be found at https://www.thepandemicinstitute.org/