Background

In the face of multiple, diverse and emerging global health threats, global health research has a central role to play in developing effective interventions and sustainable policies to deal with these challenges, especially in the context of reaching the targets set by the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As recently stated, “research is a major driver of social and technological innovation that can lead to health and equity improvements through a knowledge-to-action process” (Coloma & Harris, 2009) and, through global health science, “we will never have a better opportunity to improve public health globally” (Farrar, 2007).

The world today faces not only threats from pandemics of infectious disease, e.g. pandemic influenza H1N1, but has to contend with the emergence of resistance to antimicrobial agents, chronic diseases, an aging population, fragile health systems and the health impacts of globalization, e.g. those related to climate change, travel and migration, food insecurity, lack of clean water and the global spread of harmful lifestyles and substances. It is also a reality that it is the developing world that is bearing the brunt of the global disease burden.

Despite increasing amounts of resources spent on global health R&D, an estimated $160 billion in 2005 (Global Forum for Health Research, 2008), there are concerns with the impact of the current financial crisis on the funding of health research, continued weaknesses and constraints in research capacity in developing countries, the inadequacies of the current modes of global health research governance, and the way resources are currently distributed to various areas and types of health research.