Exploring global and regional approaches for violence against women research priority setting

The global covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the scale of violence against women (VAW), and how far we still have to go to prevent VAW and provide quality responses to victims/survivors. Priority setting processes are an essential part of aligning funding with knowledge gaps. However, processes vary globally, are often not inclusive, and often dominated by the interests of funders in the global north. The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) is the largest network for VAW research, providing an essential platform to share research and connect. Engaging with the SVRI's extensive networks, the key goal of this project is to engage global and regional groups in a discussion about the utility and efficacy of priority setting processes. This will be achieved by creating a space where priority setting processes can be critically examined with an emphasis on decolonising these processes and standardising priority setting methods to improve VAW research moving forwards. The outcome will be a co-produced set of global principles for research priority setting which embody what has been learnt during the pandemic, reflect the work of regional and global groups and ensure that intersectional voices, including voices from researchers in low and middle income countries, are heard and represented.