Greater than the sum of its parts
The Fleming Initiative will break down barriers between scientists, policymakers, and the public through the founding of the Fleming Centre, a co-location space in London.
The Fleming Centre’s activities and impact will be delivered through three pillars.
Each pillar has its own professional specialism, but their work will be collaborative and interdependent, leading to the emergence of powerful new ideas and an opportunity for a faster route to real world impact.
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The co-location model will allow for research to be led by priorities across all relevant disciplines, ensuring the Centre’s results will be shared widely throughout academic and policy channels, and better embedding our interventions in industry and the community.​
Public Engagement and Behaviour Change
If we change our behaviours, we can keep antibiotics working for another hundred years
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Pillar Leads: ​Dr Emily Scott Dearing​ and Dr Kate Grailey​​
Expert Advisor: Professor David Halpern​
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The Public Engagement and Behaviour Change pillar will identify priorities for behaviour change, explore the determinants of these behaviours, and work with the public to co-create novel, behaviourally informed interventions that inspire collective behaviour change.
There are six key goals within the Public Engagement and Behaviour Change pillar:
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1. Build a culture where the public voice is valued by those tackling the antimicrobial crisis, so that society’s role is at the centre of solutions.
The pillar will support all Fleming Initiative staff and collaborators – from researchers to policymakers – in engaging and involving the public
in their work.
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2. Directly engage and involve the public locally in tackling
antimicrobial resistance
Through events, exhibitions, and online content, to build a shared
sense of motivation and urgency.​
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3. Directly engage and involve the public globally in tackling
antimicrobial resistance
By sharing and adapting Fleming Centre’s powerful content via our
international networks and catalysing global citizen engagement
campaigns.
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4. Co-creation of behavioural science research with the public
Ensuring this research is co-created with the public is at the heart of this
pillar's mission. This approach will ensure that our research has maximal
impact, as it will be designed with and for the target audiences.
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We have formed collaborations with The Behavioural Insights Team and
YouTube Health to deliver a series of research projects that aim to co-design behavioural science informed interventions.
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Uniquely, the pillar will be co-located alongside a public exhibition space
where we will host behavioural science experiments – engaging the public as
participants to develop and trial our interventions through interactive
exhibitions and installations.
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5. Applying academic rigour to produce meaningful impact
Our behavioural science research will be conducted with the utmost academic rigour at every stage, ensuring our results are robust, can be replicated and reliably inform policy. Our interventions will be tested pragmatically in online and real-world settings, with a view to obtaining clear answers about which interventions can create meaningful behaviour change and are suitable for scale.
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6. Enabling global scaling of behavioural research and interventions
Antimicrobial resistance is a global challenge, and collective behaviour change must happen at scale. The Public Engagement and Behaviour Change pillar will work with global research partners, using the work at the Fleming Centre as an initial test bed for research and interventions.
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We know the determinants of behaviour relating to antimicrobial resistance are likely to be different in different global settings. We will work with established global research partners to tailor and adapt our outputs, informed by local qualitative research, to ensure our research is relevant and has impact at scale.
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Science and Innovation
Harnessing the newest innovations to better interpret
and utilise complex data, and develop novel treatments
and interventions
Pillar Leads: ​Dr Timothy Rawson​ and Dr Damien Ming​​
Expert Advisor: Dr Jesus Rodriguez Manzano​
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The Science and Innovation pillar recognises that scientific disciplines too often work in silos, without fully meeting the potential of strategically directed and co-operative research.
The pillar will be guided by the needs of the public and driven by a culture of convergence science – in which historically siloed disciplines work together in a deeply collaborative
manner – with the aim of most effectively translating research into real-world impact.
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There are three key goals within the Science and Innovation pillar:​
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1. Harnessing the newest innovations in artificial intelligence
to better interpret and utilise complex biological data.​
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2. Promote the development of novel treatments for drug-resistant
infections and novel diagnostics to ensure appropriate use of
antimicrobial drugs.
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3. Develop our understanding of how drug-resistant infections are
transmitted, and how novel surveillance approaches might allow
us to better detect and track drug-resistant infections.
Informed Policy
Developing and implementing novel policy measures
to decrease antimicrobial resistance
Pillar Leads: ​Peter Howitt and Dr Raheelah Ahmad
Expert Advisor: Dr Mirfin Mpundu​​
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The Informed Policy pillar will bring together policymakers from different organisations – and connect them with the public – uniting them with the common mission of using policy tools to tackle antimicrobial resistance, domestically and internationally.
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It recognises that in today’s highly interconnected world, nations cannot effectively combat antimicrobial resistance in isolation: the Informed Policy pillar will strengthen
the UK’s position as a leader in antimicrobial resistance policy, and work to share
its learnings, particularly with lower-to-middle income countries with fewer
policy-making resources.
There are three key goals within the Informed Policy pillar:
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1. Developing a Model National Action Plan for Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: An exemplar plan that can be tailored according to country context and available resourcing.
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2. Sharing case studies of engaging with the public and professionals in policy making that could be replicated in other contexts.
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3. Innovating financial policies to incentivise the development of new antibiotics, diagnostics, and other technologies to reduce antimicrobial resistance.