Global business and academic leaders launch new £6m challenge to protect the world against future pandemics

Updated 3rd June 2021

London, UK, 14 SEPTEMBER 2020: Launched by Dame Sally Davies, former Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for the United Kingdom, The Trinity Challenge will bring together the world’s best and brightest minds and global organisations to better protect the world against health emergencies.

The Founding Members are: Aviva, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Brunswick Group, University of Cambridge, Discovery Limited, Facebook, Global Virome Project, Google, GSK,  HKUMed, Imperial College London, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Internews, Legal and General, LSE, McKinsey and Company, Microsoft, Northeastern University, Optum, Reckitt Benckiser, Tencent, Zenysis Technology

The Trinity Challenge

The global health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19 have laid bare our current inability to identify, respond to and recover from health emergencies. Launching the Challenge, Dame Sally Davies [today] said:

“There will be another COVID-19, and there is an opportunity for the international community to learn lessons now and prepare for the future. The Trinity Challenge is a recognition by business, academia and philanthropy of the need for new, breakthrough ideas and approaches to beat the next pandemic.

My career has been inspired by making sure all people, everywhere, have the best possible life chances. Health is integral to that, and we are seeing this now more than ever.

We need to come together to make sure this never happens again.

We need new ways of working, new partnerships, new ideas, and believe that together this strong and growing coalition can and will generate acts that protect and improve lives and livelihoods everywhere.”

The Trinity Challenge sets a series of urgent questions to harness the potential of data and analytics to learn and share lessons from the great innovations made to combat Covid-19 and to build resilience against future health emergencies. £6M of funding will be made available to Challenge Teams to support and scale their innovations across areas including economics, behavioural sciences, and epidemiology.

Convened by Dame Sally Davies in her role as Master of Trinity College, at the University of Cambridge, The Trinity Challenge has 22 Founding Members representing a diverse coalition of world leading organisations across the private, public and social sectors, united by the common aim of using data and advanced analytics to develop insights and practical actions to contribute to a world better protected from health emergencies.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO welcomed the opening of The Trinity Challenge in a video message saying:

“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.”

Emma Walmsley, CEO of GSK said:

“Responding to COVID-19 must be our clear priority, but it is also vital that we learn from this experience to help the world better prepare for future pandemics and improve overall global health resilience. We think the Trinity Challenge can help with this mission, bringing together public institutions, academia, multi-lateral organisations and the private sector to drive new thinking and innovation.”

Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London went on to say:

“We are living through the most urgent public health crisis in a generation and have achieved more in the past six months than could ever have been imagined. The pandemic has highlighted the power of collaboration, the strength of our communities, and the importance of thinking beyond geographical borders.

The Trinity Challenge will help us combine data analytics and collective insights from across sectors to ensure that we are prepared for the epidemics, pandemics and global health emergencies of the future." 

Data-driven, inclusive pioneering solutions

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. Submissions that make the selection will be supported with access to people, data and resources from Founding Members, to maximise the effectiveness of their solutions and leverage the world-leading expertise and innovation of these institutions.

Challenge Teams will focus on potential solutions that support and strengthen the global public health ecosystem in a robust and inclusive way. Solutions will be fielded globally through an open and accessible submission process to bring the best minds and ideas together with the aim of developing insights which will benefit the world in the future.

John Kahan, Chief Data Analytics Officer and global lead of the AI for Health program at Microsoft said:

“Whilst still in the midst of this pandemic, we are learning from the data and advanced analytics to find solutions for possible future global health emergencies.  

As one of the Founding Members of The Trinity Challenge we will help create the ecosystem needed to tackle some of the world’s toughest health problems.”

Adrian Gore, the CEO of South African insurance company Discovery Limited, who are already working on an early partnership project as part of the Trinity Challenge, said:

“The Trinity Challenge encapsulates the mega-themes we are seeing emerge from this crisis – the importance of health and wellbeing; the pivotal role of technology and innovation; and the power of partnerships to make a tangible difference to society – in a way that is equitable and inclusive.

We are proud to be part of this initiative and look forward to the new health capacity and innovation it will enable, with a lasting positive impact for global society.”

The power of collaboration

From anywhere in the world, Challenge Teams will be able to partner with global experts, drawing on their resources and support.

The Global Virome Project, who have been driving collaborative scientific initiatives to discover viral threats and stop future pandemics for over 10 years, highlight how important the partnership and collaboration aspect of the Challenge is, stating:

“The Trinity Challenge is a call to action that challenges us to think differently and act differently.

We at the Global Virome Project are enthusiastic about the opportunity the Trinity Challenge has created to forge new partners, stimulate novel ideas and generate fresh energy so that we can collectively address the challenges posed by the COVID19 pandemic while also better preparing the world to address all the threats to come.”

Dan Schumacher, President and Chief Operating Officer at Optum noted:

“the path to creating a stronger and more equitable health system, and a better world, resides in all of us. It’s our responsibility to find the answers by working together and collaborating on real solutions to create a healthier world – that’s why Optum is proud to be a founding member of The Trinity Challenge.”

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 changemaking 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.

Submissions before January 2021

You can register your interest to participate in The Trinity Challenge at on the website at https://thetrinitychallenge.org. Formal applications will open in early October. The submission period will close in January 2021.

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Notes to editors

Dame Sally Davies is available for interviews on request, please call 07525897441, Hebe Trotter, Brunswick Group

1. The Trinity Challenge is a coalition of members united by the common aim of using data and advanced analytics to develop insights and actions to contribute to a world better protected from health emergencies.
2. Our Vision is to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of one billion more people by using data and analytics to better predict and prevent outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, and to improve the health, economic and social response and recovery to health emergencies and endemic disease.
3. Our Mission is to give the brightest minds a platform to partner with leaders from businesses, the social sector and academia to collaborate and contribute insights as global public goods.
4. Our Goal is to identify, generate and recognise insights to contribute to the goal of a world better protected from health emergencies and to drive positive health, economic and social changes in how the world responds to and recovers from outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.
5. In order to realise the above, we are (i) launching a public Challenge on 14 September 2020 to generate, identify and recognise boundary-spanning insights across the categories of identification, response and recovery (ii) convening high-impact collaborations, from diverse sectors and geographies, to drive action immediately (iii) strengthening the data and analytics ecosystem in global public health, and committing to trusted data collaboration by promoting openness, privacy, security, empowerment, and usability.
6. Visit our website at https://thetrinitychallenge.org, follow us @Twitter @linkedin @facebook