Harnessing the potential of young Europeans to collaboratively address the global access to medicines challenges Erasmus Project

Project Title

Harnessing the potential of young Europeans to collaboratively address the global access to medicines challenges

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers; Health and wellbeing; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

The project focused on harnessing the active citizenship of young people at universities, engaging them in concrete youth work focusing on advocacy for access to medicines. Our objectives are:
1. To raise awareness among young people on the A2M challenges which affect populations worldwide, irrespective of the socio-economic status of individual countries;
2. To provide young people at universities and research institutions with the necessary skills to run efficient and impactful campaigns, actions and projects to advance the political discussions around providing access to medicines to everyone;
3. To provide young people with opportunities to have a dialogue with high-level and relevant stakeholders in the A2M sector, thus creating linkages for youth participation and engagement in advocating for a fairer R&D system in their respective universities and countries.
4. To empower young people with the skills and capacities to do impact advocacy
These objectives were reached through a number of activities organised in collaboration with the partner organisations, as well as individual activities and events organised locally by the partner organisations.

The European Conference served as a key opportunity to gather young people and critically raise awareness on the access to medicines challenges and its impact on both global and national health systems. More specifically, by focusing Public Return on Public Investment and the Role of Universities, our Conference participants were encouraged to think of their roles at universities and of ways they can engage with their institutions to ensure that the products of publicly funded research would be made affordable and accessible to all. In addition to workshops and sessions led by the students themselves, experts and professionals in the field of access to medicines and advocacy were invited to lead workshops on specific topics, providing an overview of the range of stakeholders involved and how their input is of prime importance in defining the global health responses countries implement.

The European Leadership Meeting brought together 20 of our UAEM student leaders for a deep dive into how to organise and lead in a 2-day workshop. This was a defining moment for our volunteers to grasp their role as leaders within our network and to come up with good practices which would support the realisation of our goals. From this meeting, action plans for different working groups were elaborated, including ways to involve UAEM chapters and build on the advocacy efforts of all the members within our European network.

UAEMers across Europe, in their countries, have come together as well to raise awareness with local political leaders and decisionmakers on their social responsibility in the access to health and care sector. This year, our teams in Denmark, France, UK and Germany made an impressive breakthrough in their advocacy with high-level stakeholders. More particularly, these efforts were critical leading into the World Health Assembly in May 2019, where member states were engaging in discussions on their efforts to be transparent on access policies. Our teams and partner organisations in these countries were at the forefront of advocacy efforts with political representatives, to engage and inform on the need for transparency and socially responsible licensing. During the World Health Assembly itself, our German and French student-volunteers played a key part in their respective member state representatives stance on these important global health issues, resulting in Germany and France taking measures and committing to transparency principles.

Building on these different activities, Access to Medicines Week in November 2019 resulted in a UAEM Europe-wide campus engagement to raise awareness with other non-UAEMers and the public on the need to hold our institutions accountable for transparency and inclusion in public health policies, at both national and global levels.

Despite the unforeseen challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, our student volunteers kept engaged in the advocacy around the growing global access to medicines crisis. 2020 has seen the successful development and finalisation of two new tools: the Equitable Technology Access Framework (ETAF), detailing specific strategies which universities and publicly funded research organisations can employ to maximise the public health impact of their innovations and the COVID-19 mapping tool, specifically developed to track public funds awarded to universities and public research institutions for COVID-19 related research and development (R&D). Both of these tools open up opportunities for increased targeted advocacy for our student volunteers and help them define a youth-driven solution to current access to medicines crisis brought about by COVID-19 by working with their universities. Our young people also delivered a 6-part learning series on access to medicines.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 57750 Eur

Project Coordinator

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V. & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Austria
• Universities Allied for Essential Medicines – the Netherlands (UAEM-NL)
• Universities Allied for Essential Medicines UK
• UAEM Denmark
• Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Germany
• UAEM Norway
• Universities Allied for Essential Medicines France