Listen & learn

As we develop GSIDD, we want to ensure that our approach is grounded in the needs and perspectives of our community. But with a global field as diverse as infectious disease dynamics, how do we gather meaningful input without overlooking critical voices?

Our answer: start by consulting with the organizations that already serve our community.

Why Organizations?

We focused our initial outreach on networks, consortia, and other multi-institutional organizations within the infectious disease dynamics space (research centers at single institutions were outside this scope). These orgs make up our IDD Organization Landscape. We chose this approach for two key reasons:

First, while it wouldn't be possible for us to seek feedback from each individual member of our community, existing organizations know their communities and their needs well. They are already implementing activities and processes that address the specific challenges their members face.

Second, these organizations provide a window into the breadth of our field. Our survey revealed a landscape that is remarkably diverse, spanning continents and subdisciplines. Our field has organizations focused on everything from measles to malaria modeling research, from scenario modeling to forecasting, and from human to animal health policy. This geographic and topical range offers valuable insight into the varied needs across infectious disease dynamics.

The Consultation Process

Our process has been straightforward. A member of the GSIDD founding committee reaches out to each organization and arranges a conversation with their leadership or representatives. During these discussions, we:

• Learn about their organization, its mission, and the community it serves

• Share our draft documents and plans for GSIDD

• Ask for feedback on how GSIDD can best fill gaps in our field

• Explore potential ways their organization could collaborate with GSIDD

  
  

These conversations have been invaluable in shaping our next steps and understanding the needs of our field. We're still working through our list of organizations, so this consultation process remains ongoing.

What We're Learning

We're grateful to the organizations that have taken the time to speak with us and share their expertise. The feedback we've received has already influenced our thinking about GSIDD's role and priorities. Organizations have shared insights about challenges in their regions, gaps in training and career development, barriers to collaboration, and opportunities we hadn't previously considered.

We acknowledge an important limitation of this approach: not all members of our community belong to an organization. In fact, reaching those who aren't currently connected to existing networks is one of the key motivations for forming GSIDD in the first place. As we move forward, we hope we can find ways to hear from everyone! (If you have ideas on this, reach out at info@gsidd.org).