Discover how scientists responded to the pandemic and how they conduct innovative research to develop treatments and vaccines. Explore the critical role of research in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by surprise, causing a global health crisis. Reducing the spread of the disease and treating patients relied on how rapidly we could harness our research capabilities. This has led to developments that will change how we conduct future research.
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On this course, you will understand the challenges that COVID-19 poses to health research communities and find out how scientists in the UK conduct innovative research that meets ethical, legal and safety requirements.
Understand the research process of developing new drugs and vaccines
You will look at the steps of the clinical research cycle to understand how vaccine development was sped up. You will also discover the spectrum of COVID-19 research taking place including the development of new life-saving treatments.
Learn about the importance of the public in delivering innovative research.
You will find out how ethical considerations and the safety of participants are central to research. In stimulating case studies, research participants discuss their experiences before, during, and after COVID-19 clinical trials.
This course will help you understand how crucial your participation in research is for the future of healthcare and the development of life-saving treatments and vaccines.
Discover the next challenges for researchers.
You will explore how our response to COVID-19 may affect the future of research, and find out the next big questions for researchers, such as understanding Long COVID and the development of future vaccines.
Our Lead Educator and Mentors will be on hand from May 17 to June 18 to support discussions and to answer your questions. If you join the course after June 18, moderators will still be checking the comments regularly to respond to your queries.
What topics will you cover?
- Introducing the challenge that the pandemic posed to the health research community.
- How was the process of developing vaccinations sped up?
- How do we ensure the rights, safety and wellbeing of participants in research and those who take future vaccines and treatment?
- Research and development of treatments for COVID-19.
- The critical role of the public as partners to the research team and participants.
- The next challenges for health research and COVID-19 eg new vaccinations and long COVID.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Develop an understanding of the critical role of research in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this has changed health research.
- Explain the process of research and how this has been accelerated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Describe how vaccines have been developed and how this has been done safely and ethically.
- Explain findings from COVID-19 treatment research and understand how COVID-19 treatments have been developed (including the role of members of the public).
- Summarise how COVID-19 has changed the way that research will be delivered in the future, and why there is a need to continue COVID-19 research.
- Explore how to find out more about taking part in research.
Who is the course for?
This course is for everyone interested in finding out about the research on COVID-19. This course is also useful for people that work in healthcare to help answer the questions members of the public may ask about COVID-19 research.
