Pandemic Preparedness Through Collaboration: Connecting Expertise, Research, and Response Across Europe
The recent Hantavirus situation in Europe and current Bundibugyo ebolavirus outbreak are a reminder that infectious disease threats cannot be addressed by individual institutions, countries, or healthcare systems alone.
At the same time, well-known pathogens such as seasonal influenza continue to pose a persistent pandemic risk due to their rapid evolution, global circulation, and ability to overwhelm healthcare systems.
Together these threats underline a shared reality: preparedness must address both emerging and endemic infectious diseases.
Preparedness depends on collaboration.
It requires trusted partnerships between hospitals, researchers, public health authorities, regulators, industry, and global organisations - working together before emergencies occur.
At Ecraid, preparedness is built through a globally connected ecosystem that links:
- Hospital and primary care networks
- European and international public health partners
- Infectious disease and AMR experts
- National health authorities
- Industry and innovation partners
- Policymakers
This collaborative network enables:
- Earlier identification of emerging infectious threats
- More efficient coordination across countries
- Rapid activation of research
- Harmonised evidence generation
- Scalable and adaptive outbreak response
- Continuous generation and use of high-quality data and real-world evidence to inform timely decision-making, guide clinical practice, and support regulatory and policy responses
Ecraid’s warm-base network and scientific expertise ensure collaborations remain continuously active between outbreaks. It enables the systematic collection, sharing, and analysis of real-world data across countries and care settings, strengthening the evidence base needed to respond effectively to evolving health threats.
The strength of this approach is built on experience from other collaborative initiatives, including: REMAP-CAP, RECOVERY, PIPELINE, ECRAID-Prime, BeReady, and ECRAID-Base’s POS-studies. Together, these initiatives demonstrated that the efficiency and quality of pandemic response depends on pre-existing collaboration, shared infrastructure, and connected expertise.
This month, Ecraid explores how collaboration across Europe - and beyond - strengthens pandemic preparedness, advances evidence generation, and helps build resilient response systems for future infectious disease threats. Preparedness is a shared responsibility.
Expert Spotlight: Lennie Derde, CEO Ecraid, Intensivist UMCU
Preparedness is most effective when collaboration frameworks already exist before a crisis begins.
In the first interview of our Expert Spotlight Series, Lennie discusses her experience with trials such as REMAP-CAP and emphasises the importance of partnerships in enabling a rapid response.
Photo: Lennie Derde
Why is collaboration the foundation of effective pandemic preparedness?
Outbreaks do not respect borders, and they can evolve quite quickly. To be prepared for outbreaks and pandemics, we need to collaborate internationally, starting in peacetime. The biggest hurdles for research in a pandemic are practical, like contracting and logistics. Only if we collaborate in peacetime can we identify and anticipate these hurdles, so we can react as quickly as possible in the event of a pandemic.
What lessons from trials like REMAP-CAP changed how Europe approached outbreak research?
With REMAP-CAP, we proved that having a large, international, adaptive platform trial up and running is a highly effective strategy for starting intervention studies early in a pandemic. Of course, we also need complementary strategies, such as pre-approved observational studies and long-running cohorts that can provide epidemiological information (e.g., the POS). REMAP-CAP is a large, global, and above all flexible study, and having it in place during the pandemic has yielded 20 platform conclusions in 6 years, demonstrating its utility in both pandemics and peacetime.
How do adaptive platform trials improve coordination during emergencies?
The trials do not necessarily improve coordination in themselves, but when a trial spans multiple research jurisdictions and involves so many experts, coordination comes naturally. The common goal is to improve outcomes for patients. The European Commission's efforts in recent years to improve coordination between trials and cohorts have also been of enormous benefit.
Why are partnerships essential for rapid response?
The pandemic preparedness partnership, BeReady, is not just a project; it’s a true partnership. The goal of the partnership is to align research and policy, which is extremely important in pandemics. As we’ve recently seen with the hantavirus outbreak, this partnership can immediately activate its network and experts and can connect public health institutions, funders, and researchers.
How does Ecraid’s warm-base network strengthen Europe’s preparedness capacity between outbreaks?
Having sites that know and understand Ecraid procedures, contracting, and data collection, prepares them for comparable work during pandemics. In addition, the ongoing collaboration through studies establishes a long-term relationship that is invaluable in the uncertain circumstances of a pandemic. Using information from Ecraid’s network management system, we can determine sites' capabilities, performance, and interests to ensure an effective response to outbreaks. Through the continued collection of harmonised data from the network, we have an in-depth understanding of disease epidemiology across Europe. Lastly, the relationship with key opinion leaders through the network ensures we stay on top of developments in diagnostics and therapeutics that could be used in future pandemics.