More than 40 experts attended the brainstorming sessions organized by WP1 in December 2020 and January 2021. The ultimate goal of these sessions was to have a joint discussion between WP7 and EFPIA partners to advance on methodological topics and the study platform’s governance and sustainability.
Find a summary of these two sessions below:
Session 1
14th December 2020:
The first session started off by evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on the project. Experts offered a general epidemiological view of COVID-19 and co-circulation with influenza in the 20/21 and coming seasons, as well as alignment on COVID-19 data that could be collected from the different sites.
The meeting was also a good opportunity to prepare some key topics to be presented to the Independent Scientific Committee (ISC), such as the threshold in defining the precision of IVE estimates and details on adjustments for the present season’s statistical analysis plan.
Session 2
18th January 2021
The main aim of this second session was to present project governance adaptations (site selection, study review & scientific exchanges and updated proposals) and the sustainability plan for DRIVE.
The topic of COVID-19 was also present in this second meeting. A backup plan strategy to cope with the challenges presented by COVID-19 and the low influenza circulation was proposed. Other relevant topics discussed were the project’s publication strategy or a discussion on DRIVE’s 2021/2022 Call for tenders.
Following these Brainstorming Sessions, an additional meeting has been scheduled for February 3rd, 2021 in which several of the aforementioned topics, such as methodological discussions, project sustainability and using the DRIVE platform for influenza and other respiratory diseases once the project ends, will be discussed between DRIVE’s Steering Committee and ISC members.