The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, US will receive $3.2 million from Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to advance its open-access Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap.

CIDRAP will monitor and evaluate R&D progress and catalyse efforts to develop broadly protective vaccines that are effective and long-lasting against currently circulating coronaviruses, as well as new coronaviruses and variants that may emerge in the future. 

The roadmap, developed with guidance from over 50 scientific leaders and financial support from The Rockefeller and Gates Foundations, was launched in 2022. It serves as a global strategy to coordinate the complex research efforts and investments necessary to make more effective, longer lasting, and globally accessible vaccines that could reduce severe illness and death against coronaviruses like those causing COVID-19, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and other future coronaviruses that could spill over from animals to humans.

The key gaps and barriers in the development of broadly protective coronavirus vaccines and the goals and milestones set out to overcome them are identified in five core topic areas: virology, immunology, vaccinology, animal and human infection models, and policy and financing. 

CEPI’s new investment will monitor progress towards achieving the goals and milestones, while helping to set up an open-access online database of current literature and reports related to coronavirus vaccine research.

The funding will also support an open-access online summary of all broadly protective coronavirus vaccines in preclinical and clinical development and an online dashboard tracking funding and investment within this area of research.