Author:
Logie Carmen,Dimaras Helen,Fortin Anny,Ramón-García Santiago
Abstract
Abstract
Background
The grand challenges approach aims to spark innovative and transformative strategies to overcome barriers to significant global health issues. Grand Challenges Canada endorses an ‘Integrated Innovation™’ approach that focuses on the intersection of scientific/technological, social and business innovation. In this article we explore themes emerging from a dialogue between the authors, who are multidisciplinary recipients of the ‘Rising Stars in Global Health’ award from Grand Challenges Canada, regarding benefits of engaging in integrated innovation research, and recommendations for how this approach may develop in the future.
Discussion
Our dialogue followed a semi-structured interview format that addressed three topics: 1) reflections on applying an Integrated Innovation™ approach for global health; 2) thoughts on participation in the Grand Challenges 2012 meeting; and 3) authors’ visions of Grand Challenges Canada and the Grand Challenge movement towards 2020. The dialogue was transcribed verbatim and we used thematic analysis techniques to identify, analyze and report themes in the data. Benefits of working using the Grand Challenges approach centered on two themes: a) the potential for scientific breakthrough and b) building interdisciplinary collaborations and a community of scholars. Challenges and opportunities for Grand Challenges in moving forward included: a) capacity building, particularly regarding Integrated Innovation™ and scale-up planning; b) interdisciplinary and international mentorship for new investigators; and c) potential for future commercialization.
Conclusions
Our discussion highlighted that Integrated Innovation™ offers the opportunity to develop new theories, methods and approaches to global health while simultaneously fostering a collaborative spirit grounded in international, interdisciplinary collaborations. However, the arguable over-emphasis on corporatization poses a major challenge for new investigators. We propose a more balanced way forward that can harness technology to foster mentorship across time and space to support the development of such skills and ideas among new investigators.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,Health Policy
Reference16 articles.
1. Grand Challenges in Global Health.http://www.grandchallenges.org/Explorations/Pages/Introduction.aspx
2. World Health Organization: Grand Challenges in Genomics for Public Health in Developing Countries: Top 10 policy and research priorities to harness genomics for the greatest public health problems. 2011,http://www.who.int/rpc/grand_challenges.pdf?ua=1
3. Giles J: Social science lines up its biggest challenges. Nature. 2011, 470: 18-19. 10.1038/470018a
4. Varmus H, Klausner R, Zerhouni E, Acharya T, Daar AS, Singer PA: Public health. Grand Challenges in Global Health. Science. 2003, 302: 398-399. 10.1126/science.1091769
5. Singer PA, Taylor AD, Daar AS, Upshur RE, Singh JA, Lavery JV: Grand challenges in global health: the ethical, social and cultural program. PLoS Med. 2007, 4: e265- 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040265
Cited by
3 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献