Global Pandemic Response, Public Health and Sustainability | The Vice Chancellor’s Lecture on Globalisation, Sustainability, and the Power of Ideas with Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization
Since 2019, the University of Cambridge, led and guided by the Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope, and engaging CISDL together with a committee of world-class universities and research institutions, has hosted a lecture series on Globalisation, Sustainability, and the Power of Ideas. The Lectures bring together leaders and students from around the world, researchers, and the wider community to consider emerging global policy, law and scientific trends and innovative solutions for the SDGs, and to consider how such ideas emerge, are shared internationally, and can change the world.
The Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture was held on 01 March 2022 and was delivered online by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization. The film can be accessed at the World Health Organization’s page or the University of Cambridge’s page, and these links can be shared with others who are interested in public health and the global Sustainable Development Goals.
After the Vice-Chancellor’s welcome, the Lecture was chaired by Professor Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Leverhulme Visiting Professor and Senior Director of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, followed by brief responses from leading University of Cambridge experts, academics, and policy leaders contributing to the world’s pandemic preparedness, response and recovery, and the SDGs including Dame Barbara Stocking, President Emerita, Murray Edwards College & Chair of Panel for a Global Public Health Convention; and Professor Sharon Peacock, Professor of Public Health and Microbiology in the Department of Medicine & Executive Director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, and Professor Bhaskar Vira, Head of the Department of Geography, Professor of Political Economy and Fellow, and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. Over 470 people participated on the evening, and there have been over 13,300 views on the WHO and University of Cambridge livestreams. Tejas Rao, CISDL Associate Fellow and Leverhulme Professorship Coordinator served as zoom moderator, and Freedom-Kai Phillips, CISDL Operations Director and a doctoral student in the University of Cambridge, coordinated the event. Dr Antoinette Nestor, CISDL Associate Fellow and a post-doctoral research fellow in the University of Cambridge, engaged with Dr Tedros on the impact of the pandemic on the health and rights of women and girls around the world, who continue to represent the vast majority of frontline health workers, and Dr Markus Gehring, CISDL Lead Counsel and Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for European Legal Studies, who is also a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre, also exchanged with the WHO Director-General about ‘deep prevention’ and how a future global pandemic treaty could align with the world’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The lecture series is driven by the urgency to inspire and innovate the world’s best and brightest minds – current and future generations of leaders, teachers, and researchers – to help find ways to support globalisation that is open, inclusive, and sustainable. Speakers will address such questions as: What are the key challenges of globalisation for sustainability? What are the most innovative and exciting new ideas, tools, and strategies in the global public interest? What is needed, for global public health in the context of pandemic preparedness, response, and recovery, in today’s changing society, market and environment? How to build educational opportunities, research, practice, and careers that can make a contribution?
