As we adapt to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to support the UK's best medical and health researchers and ensure their voices are included in the important decision-making ahead.
[Page last updated 2 March 2021]
Our policy work on preparedness, testing, vaccines and more informs key decisions in the UK and around the world.
How we work
Academy Fellows like Professor Chris Whitty FMedSci and Sir Patrick Vallance FMedSci are leading the UK scientific response to COVID-19, while our office uses previous reports and live consultation to respond to related UK parliamentary inquiries. We ensure that patients and the public are at the heart of our policy work, even when working at speed. Internationally, we compare COVID-19 responses through collaborative and joint workshops with other national medical academies. Read the principles behind all our policy work here.
UK testing and preparedness
In July 2020 we rapidly reviewed how the UK must prepare for a challenging winter, with COVID-19 alongside a backlog of people needing NHS help and the possibility of a flu epidemic. As seen in BBC News, Financial Times, The Guardian and more. We reviewed how to improve diagnostic testing through a cross-sector roundtable (November 2020).
Mental health
In April 2020 we rapidly developed COVID-19 mental health and neuroscience research priorities with MQ, published in The Lancet Psychiatry. NIHR used our work to incentivise research proposals and our 'six months on' statement re-emphasised the value of mental health research. Find out about our ongoing policy follow-up work here. As seen in BBC News, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and more.
Immunology
We reviewed key COVID-19 immunology questions with the British Society for Immunology (May 2020), and our expert group for this project grew into the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium. Our open-access drug development database is helping scientists prioritise preclinical drug research. 
Vaccine trials
We explored how to rapidly test new vaccines through controlled human infection model studies with healthy adult volunteers, following up in 2018 with a workshop on practical and ethical oversight for this research.
Wider work
Our broader COVID-19 policy work includes: a review of our COVID-19 work (July 2020); supporting work on ethical frameworks for swab testing; exploring the use of neuraminidase inhibitors in influenza; a pandemic influenza report (2005), and 2007 pandemic influenza follow-up work.