ID-CARE team members in Rome for final meeting of VERDI and first in-person workshop of the Cohort Coordination Board

At the end of September, members of the ID-CARE team headed to Rome, Italy, to join colleagues at the VERDI General Assembly and the first in-person workshop of the Cohort Coordination Board (CCB). The week ended with a collaborative meeting between the CoMeCT and CONTAGIO project teams.

VERDI Project General Assembly 2025

On 23 and 24 September, VERDI members got together for the final General Assembly, ahead of the project's closure on 31 October, to discuss major achievements and the project's legacy.

The General Assembly opened with representatives from Thailand and the Democratic Republic of the Congo giving an overview on the current status of mpox in their countries, providing interesting insight into the potential miscommunications surrounding mpox on Thai social media. The second morning session had seven experts discussing the impact of VERDI research in a rapidly changing world. ID-CARE Director, Evelina Tacconelli, opened the discussion covering global research considerations. She highlighted the importance of collaboration when aiming for effective pandemic preparedness initiatives. Perspectives were also provided by experts from Italy, Estonia, France, Thailand, South Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lunch was followed by a detailed overview of achievements and work completed within Work Package 7 Mpox & Preparedness. ID-CARE Director, Evelina Tacconelli, presented the achievements of the UNIVR-led tasks, focussed on mapping cohort studies of COVID-19, mpox and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), the management of the CCB and the development of the CCB’s Central Data Repository (CDR). The presentation also covered the sustainability of the CCB and CDR, specifically regarding the CCB’s inclusion into other projects: CoMeCT, PIPELINE, PROACT EU-Response, and BE READY NOW.

Day 2 provided a detailed overview of the remaining Work Packages: 1 - Coordination and Project Management, 2 - Track and Characterise, 3 - Understand, 4 - Model, and 5 - Share and Disseminate. Many presentations ended with a focus on “lessons learned” from the work completed in the four years VERDI has been active. As VERDI sees its end on 31 October 2025, reflecting on achievements and lessons learned is a key activity for bringing the fruit from that hard work into the future projects.

Learn more about VERDI here: https://verdiproject.org/ 

Cohort Coordination Board Workshop

As coordinators of the CCB, the ID-CARE UNIVR team was extremely happy to finally have everyone together in-person to discuss the history of the CCB, the importance of cohort research and the future of pandemic preparedness.

The day started with presentations from Ajibola Omokanye at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and Evelina Tacconelli, Chair of the CCB, in a session about leveraging observational studies for pandemic preparedness in Europe, chaired by European Commission representative Stefan Schreck, from the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety. The morning continued with a session dedicated to the challenges and solutions of cohort studies in pandemic preparedness over the last 5 years, within which participants discussed potential sustainable funding opportunities and the importance of supporting research groups in low-middle income countries, which are often hit harder in pandemics and suffer more outbreaks. This session was followed by discussions regarding how to ensure inclusion of vulnerable groups in pandemic research.

Dr Lorenzo Maria Canziani, part of the ID-CARE Team, presented at the 4^th session of the day dedicated to Advancing Cohort Design, discussing how integrating cohorts and trials could strengthen evidence generation. This session also covered the idea of “warm” networks and studies, that have infrastructure ready in order to switch rapidly in the case of an outbreak, discussed by Marc Bonten, CEO of Ecraid. In the afternoon, the CCB regrouped to attend the “Building Sustainable Models for Long-Term Cohort Research” session during which ID-CARE Director Evelina Tacconelli presented the innovative opportunities to ensure CCB sustainability in the future. This session also hosted Hervé Raoul, Coordinator of the Be Ready Now project, starting in January 2026 and establishing the new European Partnership for Pandemic Preparedness, who presented on the project and synergies with the CCB.

For the final session of the day, participants were divided into five working groups (WGs), each tasked with discussing two main questions on topics of high priority for the European research ecosystem, namely “Linking RCT and Cohort Design”, “Designing Cohorts to Address Vulnerable Populations”, “Ensuring Cohort Sustainability”, “Collect the Right Data, the Right Way”, and “Measuring the Burden of Infectious Diseases with Pandemic Potential in Cohort Design”. Each WG representative reported the outputs of the focused discussion, which are currently being developed into an extensive report to guide the future of the CCB activities.

Learn more about the CCB here: https://cohortcoordinationboard.eu/

CoMeCT x CONTAGIO Meeting

On Friday 26 September, members of the CoMeCT and CONTAGIO projects met to provide updates on projects’ progress, outline key potential synergies and discuss future visions of collaboration. A full report on the meeting is being drafted for potential publication.

One of the main aspects raised by ID-CARE Director Evelina Tacconelli at this meeting was the potential complementarity between the CONTAGIO Cohort Preparedness Platform and the VERDI/CoMeCT Central Data Repository. Furthermore, the need to reinforce semantic interoperability between the two data collection tools was highlighted as well as the enhancement of tools for individual data harmonisation and sharing. Finally, to ensure sustainability and capacity building, joint training activities and common meetings to share outcomes have been discussed.