This week, the World Health Organization’s TDR (Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases) launched TDR Global, a worldwide platform for researcher networking and public profiling. It will provide a simple, extensive system for researchers to identify an expert, institution or network with which they can cooperate, and makes use of the open source Profiles RNS platform.
Some of TDR’s current projects include work towards the elimination of diseases (such as malaria, visceral leishmaniasis and onchocerciasis in Bangladesh, India and Nepal); strengthening of national health policies with research evidence and analysis (for diseases such as dengue and schistosomiasis); and helping vulnerable communities become more resilient to the health threats of climate change.
With such a wide range of researchers and experts involved in TDR’s work, this unified system will provide tremendous opportunity for the worldwide TDR community to connect and collaborate. Face-to-face meetings are not always possible with a community distributed around the world, so a connected platform like this has the potential to open up many new doors for everyone involved. It’s the first time we’ve worked on a project like this with a funder, and we look forward to seeing its impact within the community.
We’d like to congratulate the TDR Global Working Group on a successful launch of this exciting new system.
Symplectic is a registered service provider of Profiles RNS, the researcher networking platform, which can be integrated with their Research Information Management System, Elements.
TDR is a global programme of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty. It is hosted at the World Health Organization (WHO), and is sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the WHO. Their mission is “To foster an effective global research effort on infectious diseases of poverty and promote the translation of innovation to health impact in disease endemic countries.”