UN and partners release new Research Roadmap to guide recovery from COVID-19

To immediately address the complex health, humanitarian and socio-economic consequences while boosting speedy recovery efforts, the UN has released a Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery, encouraging targeted research for data-driven responses that focus particularly on the needs of people being left behind. 

The Roadmap highlights the choice between business as usual, or transformative change that is focused on equity, resilience and sustainability. This transformation requires knowledge of the best way forward, and science represents the world’s best chance for generating that knowledge and recovering better from the COVID-19 crisis. Link to the Roadmap: https://unsdg.un.org/resources/un-research-roadmap-covid-19-recovery

“We have a historic opportunity for change; for macroeconomic choices and fiscal policies that are pro-poor and that place peoples' rights at the centre of recovery. We must focus on gender equity and invest in public services and other measures that will help close the widening gap on inequalities and lead to a greener future,” said United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed in the report.

In an interdependent world—shared risk means shared responsibility. Designed to complement the existing UN Framework for the Immediate Socio-Economic Response to COVID-19, the Roadmap identifies 25 main research priorities and key scientific strategies to support a recovery that benefits everyone, everywhere.

“The stakes are too high and the opportunity too great to leave the potential of science for a better COVID-19 recovery unfulfilled. The UN Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery is a commitment and guide to bring the full promise of research to bear on today’s greatest challenges,” said Professor Steven J. Hoffman, Scientific Director of the Institute of Population & Public Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, who led the development of the Research Roadmap.

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