This article was written by Dr Dylan Williams, Policy Officer at the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Nestled on a narrow strip of land on the Adriatic Sea’s eastern shores, the offices of the InterAcademy Medical Panel (now known as the InterAcademy Partnership for Health) must top the list of serene destinations playing host to specialists in matters of global science policy. In December 2013, Catherine Luckin and I visited IAMP’s secretariat in the Italian city of Trieste on behalf of Academy’s policy team to build relationships and discuss how the organisations can achieve mutually held aims together, following the Academy’s election to IAMP’s Executive Committee last summer.
IAMP is a network of the world’s academies of medicine, and medical sections of academies of science and engineering. It was established as a thematic offshoot from the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) in the mid-2000s to focus on global health issues. It currently has over 70 member academies from around the world.
IAMP’s central aim is to facilitate science capacity building worldwide, and to give scientific experts voices in policymaking as widely as possible. To do so, IAMP encourages the development of academies in countries where none exist, which is particularly relevant to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The formation of the Academy of Science of South Africa in the 1990s (facilitated by the Royal Society) is one illustration of the usefulness of this strategy. It allowed the country’s scientists to engage with the ruling African National Congress party on how to address the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic.
IAMP’s direction is provided by its Executive Committee, representing 11 member academies, and its two co-Chairs. One co-Chair is elected from a LMIC (currently Professor Lai Meng Looi of the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia), and one from a high-income country (HIC; currently Professor Detlev Ganten of the German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina). These determine the focus of the day-to-day work of IAMP on specifically funded programmes and the production of statements on issues relevant to international health.
Projects are often designed initially as IAMP-driven activities, and are envisaged to provide a basis for individual member academies to build upon them locally, to create sustainable activities. For example, a current flagship project is the Young Physician Leaders Programme. This offers tailored training on the leadership of research communities to physicians nominated by member academies while they attend Berlin’s World Health Summit each year. It also encourages them to disseminate training messages and start related schemes when returning home. The success of the programme could be enhanced by ensuring that initial activity in Berlin will seed the spread of training worldwide; for example, by possibly encouraging member academies to develop mentoring programmes to cultivate leadership locally. Given the Academy’s strength in cultivating mentorship ties in the UK, this might present an opportunity for us to help IAMP to develop its ambitious programme.
To date, the Academy has signed and supported the development of several IAMP statements, most recently, the joint IAP/IAMP statement on antimicrobial resistance. We previously provided significant input on the development of its statement on ‘the Health Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation’. With election to the Executive Committee, the Academy’s Foreign Secretary will chair IAMP’s new statements committee, which will work to raise awareness on health issues of global importance.
With an increasing international portfolio of work, and the strengthening of fruitful ties with organisation such as IAMP, the Academy is continuing to make great strides in its strategic goal to seize international opportunities.