Beginning of this year the Executive Board was eagerly preparing a new application for the National Growth Fund, aimed at increasing the national preparedness for infectious disease outbreaks. These efforts were combined with Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Centre (PDPC) and a joint application was submitted. Unfortunately, end of this spring we have heard the NGF application was not awarded. Nevertheless, other activities for the pandemic preparedness research agenda were and will be followed in the coming time.

One of these activities is that NCOH has reacted to a ZonMW invitational call on pandemic preparedness and was awarded 2.5 M euro funding for short one-year postdoc projects that will strengthen our consortium and further cultivate structural collaboration between different disciplines to accelerate research into pandemic preparedness. Currently, the Consortium Agreement is almost ready and the project will start with a Kick-off meeting for the consortium.

The Executive Board is seeing some changes, with prof. Annemarie Rebel (WUR) appointed as Chair of NCOH , and new board members Wim van de Poel (WUR), and Jutte de Vries (LUMC) as representatives of their organisations. Three of the four Scientific Directors positions of NCOH-HWE, NCOH-SHF, and NCOH-AMR had become vacant. The profiles were communicated to the partners and nominations for these positions will be presented for decision making in November. We hope to inform you of the new Scientific Directors in our next newsletter!

As of November we are also looking for a new Secretary to the Board, to be employed at a partner’s organisation. So, if you are interested or know suitable candidates, please let us know.

Last but not least, we look forward to meeting you in Groningen for the NCOH Science Café on 9 November, where science and networking will be central!