This year’s International Pandemic Sciences Conference was held on 30 June to 1 July 2025 in Oxford. The event was organized by the Pandemic Sciences Institute, an inter-disciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford dedicated to confronting the challenge of epidemic and pandemic infectious diseases.

The conference started with an opening keynote lecture by prof. Marion Koopmans, scientific director and founder of the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center (PDPC). Her research focuses on emerging infections with special emphasis on unravelling pathways of disease emergence and spread at the human-animal interface. Creating global networks to fight infectious diseases systematically and on a large scale is a common thread in her work.

The PDPC Academy team presented their research during three sessions. Dr. Charlotte Waltz, postdoctoral researcher at the PDPC, presented at the parallel session on ‘Ethics, social science and humanities’. With her presentation, ‘Bridging Epistemic Divides: Evaluating Integrated Scientific Advice in Pandemic Decision-Making’, she introduced the research line on Integrated Science for Policy and ‘Learning from a Crisis’ simulations of 2025 and discussed how to bridge knowledge divides when working in an interdisciplinary environment. Charlotte’s presentation received a lot of interest and many questions from the audience, which highlighted the importance of- and need for innovative, interdisciplinary research about integrated science for policy.

During the poster session on ‘Ethics, social science and humanities’, Tim Florschütz, PhD candidate at the PDPC, presented his poster titled ‘Investigating Barriers and Drivers for Quarantining following a contact tracing app notification in the Netherlands’, which received the Best Poster Award in his session. With his research, Tim analysed why users of the Dutch contact tracing app CoronaMelder quarantined or not after they received an exposure notification – notifications that were sent to warn users that they had been in contact with an infected individual. While factors like perceived severity and susceptibility are commonly used to explain protective behaviours such as quarantining, these did not have a significant effect on behaviour following a notification. The main barrier, the research suggests, is the number of previous notifications received. This insight can be useful in designing communication strategies and supportive policies that can help increase contact tracing apps’ uptake and adherence in future pandemics.

On Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Tomris Cesuroglu, Scientific Secretary of the PDPC, presented in the parallel session ‘Policy, politics and practice’, with her presentation titled ‘Scientific Advisory Committees during COVID-19: A Comparative Analysis of Seven European Countries’. During her presentation, she shared preliminary results of their comparative study on how seven Western European countries shaped their scientific advisory committees during COVID-19, focusing on interdisciplinarity, adaptability, and integration of diverse expertise. Together with her colleagues, she found significant differences across the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in terms of structure, interdisciplinarity, communication, and political engagement – highlighting valuable lessons, especially for the Netherlands. For her contribution, Tomris received the Best Oral Presentation Award on ‘Policy, Politics and Practice’. Tomris adds:

“I’m honored that our work received the Best Oral Presentation Award, and I am grateful to my colleagues Charlotte Waltz, Ferran Castaño Rosario, Danique ten Bokkel Huinink, and Anja Schreijer for the excellent collaboration!”

The research presented by the PDPC contributes to the broader goal of global epidemic and pandemic preparedness of the Pandemic Sciences Institute. By sharing research with colleagues from all over the world, the PDPC hopes to contribute to a world that is optimally prepared for future pandemics and disasters.