The meeting brought us back to Warren House, where IMPRINT held its first network meeting back in 2018. It was made possible thanks to additional short-term funding we received from UKRI.

Over the past five years, IMPRINT has supported a range of scientific activities organised around six thematic challenges representing the network’s focus areas. The first day of the meeting focused on a series of presentations about activities responding to the thematic challenges, including keynote speeches by Prof Arnaud Marchant (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and Prof Marcella Pasetti (University of Maryland School of Medicine) and wrapped up with a group dinner.

The second day of the meeting included a series of presentations by industry representatives on the development of new vaccines for GBS, RSV and CMV and a session focusing on public engagement. IMPRINT has provided resources to eleven public engagement projects, their activities have ranged from participatory filmmaking and community radio in India to the establishment of an ambassadors programme for adolescents in Uganda to raise awareness about maternal immunization.

Wrapping up the Public Engagement session, IMPRINT’s Co-Director Prof Chrissie Jones (University of Southampton) presented the Clothed With Protection project, an arts project that she worked on in collaboration with Fashion designer Luke Jerram. In the context of the project, 10 fashion designers in Kampala, Uganda, were commissioned to create an exhibition of clothing that promotes vaccination in pregnant women across Africa. For more information about this project, check out this 5-min video.

The IMPRINT network’s impact and the relationships forged over the past five years will continue way beyond this meeting.

A big thank you to everyone who joined the meeting!

PS. If you are a member of the IMPRINT network and want to delve deeper into the outcomes and lessons learned of Public Engagement Projects, check out the Public Engagement Toolkit on the IMPRINT Intranet.

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