Pandemic resource groups wound up – Centre for Health Crises continues their work
The COVID-19 preparedness and resource groups that KI set up during the pandemic are to be wound up. Their work will be picked up and developed by the Centre for Health Crises, which was established in July 2021.
In the early days of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, the then KI president Ole Petter Ottersen set up a number of preparedness and resource groups at KI in order to gather experts able to support KI’s university management and communication, and to help make sure that official measures against COVID-19 were based as fully as possible on science.
In July 2021, KI established the Centre for Health Crises, which currently mobilises and coordinates interdisciplinary expertise and knowledge, and utilises the skills and experience gained through the preparedness and resource groups during the pandemic.
The research, education and collaborative activities of the Centre for Health Crises will make society better placed to deal with future health crises.
In June 2023, KI president Annika Östman Wernerson announced her decision to wind up the groups:
“What the preparedness and resource groups achieved practically and scientifically made a huge contribution to society’s collective effort to prevent the spread of infection, brought deeper insights into viruses, drugs and treatments, and made us better prepared for future health threats, internationally as well as nationally,” she says. “This work is now to be picked up and developed under the remit of the Centre for Health Crises.”