From Insightful Science to Innovative Health: Strengthening Translational Capacity and Talent Interoperability in Vaccine and Biologic Research & innovation

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, biologicals and vaccines became regarded as salient pillars for disease prevention and control. However, strengthening preparedness for and response to health emergencies request more commitment and intersectoral cooperation between academia and industry to set up efficient strategies against diseases, whether through surveillance, detection, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. VISION (Vaccine & bIologics reSearch & innovatION) intends to implement an intensive intersectoral and bidirectional knowledge/know-how transfer programs in order to reinforce vaccine and biologics development capacities with manufacturing, upscaling, or delivery capabilities among a consortium with Institut Pasteur de Tunis (Tunisia), Darnitsa (Ukraine), Torlak Institute (Serbia) and Connect'Äôinnov (Tunisia) as academic (AC) & non-academic (NA) widening members; Institut Pasteur (France) and Center for Genomic Regulation (Spain) as academic research non widening (NW) organizations; Merck (France) and Quantoom (Belgium) as NW&NA partners. VISION comes as a critical lever for R&I ecosystem feeding post-pandemic needs and matches the WHO mRNA Transfer initiative aiming to enhance widening production capacities and help achieving a comprehensive health coverage towards Sustainable Development Goals. VISION will in fine streamline the discovery, testing and production of biologics and vaccine candidates including mRNA-based technologies. VISION's main objectives are threefold: (i) endow Widening Talents with advanced knowledge and skills in Vaccine and Biologics Development, (ii) promote more impactful collaboration through training and mobility between AC and NA sectors towards an efficient high-performance translational R&I environment with an Open Science pillar, and (iii) ambition to make widening members a regional flagship for excellence in innovative research with increased biobusiness and entrepreneurship capacity and openness to the socio-economic sector.