The Liu Institute for Global Issues
The Liu Institute conducts and facilitates research on global issues, mobilizing knowledge into solutions and policy. The Institute takes an interdisciplinary problem-solving approach to explore new ideas and ways of learning to catalyze innovative thinking and positive societal change. Its current focus is on advancing sustainability, security, and social justice: understood as moving toward economic, social, and environmental interactions that promote the well-being of people in ways that are just, equitable, and sustainable.
Neglected Global Diseases Initiative NGDI-UBC
The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative at UBC was created in 2009 to develop partnerships and provide support for researchers working in neglected diseases – broadly defined as infectious diseases and conditions of the poor. Our mission statement is “to develop interventions for neglected global diseases and ensure their delivery to those in need”. One of the mandates of our initiative is to mobilize knowledge to achieve an increase in multidisciplinary collaboration which will lead, we believe, to real world changes in health outcomes. We have developed a model of collaboration which we call our ‘knowledge-to-action pipeline’ that flows from bench science and development through to delivery and implementation in the field.
This discovery, development and delivery aspect is what makes our initiative unique in North America and possibly the world with the inclusion of both biological and social sciences disciplines. Our model of collaboration provides an effective guide for tackling the complex and challenging world of global health in our goals to make positive improvement to health outcomes and health equity for lower- and lower- middle income countries (LMICs). Our researchers are working on projects ranging from drug synthesis, vaccines, drug reformulations, vector control, tools, and diagnostics on the discovery and development side through to supply chain, health systems and implementation research, and policy work on affordability and adoption issues on the delivery side.