Legal & General Backs Major Global Initiative
Legal & General announced that it has formed part of a coalition of 22 leading businesses, charities, researchers and educators, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google and the University of Cambridge, to launch the Trinity Challenge.
A spokesperson said, “Legal & General announces that it has today formed part of a coalition of 22 leading businesses, charities, researchers and educators, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google and the University of Cambridge, to launch the Trinity Challenge, a global initiative to help populations throughout the world better prevent and respond to public health emergencies.
“Led by Dame Sally Davies, England’s former Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health, the Trinity Challenge will award a £10m prize fund for breakthrough solutions which harness the power of data and analytics. The initiative will seek to develop innovations in identifying, responding to and recovering from future public health crises, with the ambition to ensure that at least one billion more people are better protected.
“The Trinity Challenge is calling on global participants to submit impact-led ideas on how to safeguard our health and economic systems from the threat of global health emergencies. With entries closing in January 2021, chosen submissions will be supported with access to finance, data and resources from the Founding Members, to maximise the effectiveness of their solutions and leverage the world-leading expertise and innovation of these institutions.
The power of collaboration
“Participants will be organised into Challenge Teams, forging cross-geography collaborations which reflect a diverse set of backgrounds and specialisms. Data and analytic resources will be made available by the coalition to drive a new form of collaboration. From anywhere in the world, Challenge Teams will be able to partner with global experts, drawing on their resources and support.
Identification, response, and recovery
“The Trinity Challenge is designed around sourcing and developing impact-led solutions that reflect the holistic nature of future health emergencies. Challenge Teams will develop change-making ideas, tools and insights relevant to each of the three stages of these emergencies:
- Identification: Building early-warning systems and ground-breaking technologies to identify pathogens or outbreaks before they cause great harm.
- Response: Developing insights and capabilities to target interventions with maximal effectiveness and at minimal cost.
- Recovery: Strengthening the social and economic revival following health emergencies and constructing an equitable path toward an inclusive recovery.
Dame Sally Davies said: “The world knew a global pandemic was coming but we failed to prepare. There will be another COVID-19, the only question is whether we will learn the lessons of this pandemic or be doomed to repeat our mistakes again. The Trinity Challenge is a recognition by business, academia and philanthropy of the need for new, breakthrough ideas and approaches to beat future pandemics.”
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the world was not prepared. Together, we all have a responsibility to do everything we can to ensure a pandemic of this magnitude, with this level of disruption to lives and livelihoods, never happens again. We welcome the Trinity Challenge, which brings together multiple partners to harness the power of data and analytics for a safer world.”
Nigel Wilson, Chief Executive of Legal & General, said: “The private sector must play a key role in driving innovations to protect us from future public health crises, ensuring that never again will there be an event which brings about illness, suffering and economic disruption on the scale of COVID-19.”
Kerrigan Procter, Chief Executive of Legal & General Capital, added: “This initiative truly has the power to change the world, bridging sectors, skillsets and geographies in an effort to prevent diseases reaching pandemic or epidemic levels. What’s particularly exciting about the Trinity Challenge is its focus of real-world data and collaboration to, for instance, pinpoint when and where future outbreaks are likely to occur, or discover which interventions are most effective for protecting vulnerable population groups.”
