Vision and ten year strategy
Building on the achievements over the last 30 years, our work is based now on three major strategic directions:
- Stewardship for research on infectious diseases of poor populations: a major new role for TDR as facilitator and knowledge manager to support needs assessment, priority setting, progress analysis and advocacy, and to provide a neutral platform for partners to discuss and harmonize their activities.
- Empowerment of researchers and public health professionals from disease endemic countries (DECs), to provide support for training and research, and to build leadership at individual, institutional and national levels.
- Research on neglected priority needs that are not adequately addressed by other partners. This focuses on three research functions:
- Innovation for product discovery and development
- Research on how interventions are used in real life settings
- Research to increase access to interventions
TDR’s strategy is operating and being implemented through eleven business lines (BLs), each supported by a robust business plan that details deliverables, timelines, milestones and partnerships.
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TDR Business Plan 2008–2013 (68 pages)
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Business Plan presentation
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French version (76 pages)
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Portuguese version (66 pages)
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Chinese version (66 pages)
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A new vision and strategy
“An effective global research effort on infectious diseases of poverty, in which disease endemic countries play a pivotal role”
Health Research is increasingly seen as critical for poverty alleviation and for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) was created in 1975 to support the development of new tools to fight tropical diseases of poverty and to strengthen the research capacity of affected developing countries.
TDR has been effective in delivering its objectives and is proud of its achievements. However, the research environment has changed significantly over the last decades in part due to TDR's efforts:
- the epidemiology of infectious diseases is changing with some diseases moving to elimination and others emerging or re-emerging;
- there are many new initiatives and actors in the field providing new momentum but also leading to a more complex environment;
- disease endemic countries have enhanced research capability but are increasingly left behind in global research planning and priority setting;
- priority research needs are unequally covered and there remain several research areas that are neglected even though they are critical for the ultimate health impact of the global research effort.
TDR's new vision and strategy responds to the new research environment and to the need to make the collective global research effort more effective and responsive to research priorities in disease endemic countries. It also recognizes the need for these countries to play a major role in research and priority setting to ensure relevance, sustainability and optimal health impact for the poor.
