The MSF Scientific Days 2019: a conference without borders
ll kick off the sixteenth annual MSF Scientific Days programme in London. This event, hosted at the Royal Society of Medicine, will be followed by linked events in New Delhi, India on 8 July and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August, and will be broadcasted live in English and French.
Last year, more than 11,000 people from 102 countries participated via the livestream. This included guests at satellite events hosted by academic institutions and other partners in Lebanon, Australia and India, and many staff from our field teams.
Sharing knowledge
Why does MSF organise the Scientific Days? Our primary aim is to share the knowledge of what works, and what doesn’t, in humanitarian medical programming in an open and accessible way.
But, beyond this, we want to challenge ourselves and our partners to reflect, through an evidence-based lens, on how effective we are in our efforts to improve the care we provide to patients and communities and what impact we have through our research and innovation.
Focus on medical research
Our first day in London focuses on medical research and includes presentations on MSF’s response to the challenge of drug-resistant bugs and failing medical interventions.
A session on power and participation explores how person-centred care can improve prevention strategies and treatment adherence.
20 years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of MSF, James Orbinski returns to provide a keynote speech that will address the implications of the dramatic rise in global urbanisation on humanitarian responses.
Following this, Orbinski will be joined onstage by Professor Mala Rao of Imperial College London, to explore this topic further through a panel discussion. Finally, we close with a wide-ranging session on research into neglected tropical disease.
Humanitarian innovation
Humanitarian innovation takes centre stage on day two as the ever-charismatic Eddie Obeng (Director of Pentacle, the world’s first virtual business school) kicks things off with his take on how organisations can stay innovative and relevant in a fast-changing world.
From tech to people, our first presentations showcase how human networks could be the key to better provision of care.
Our next session explores how engineering and invention continues to be leveraged to meet humanitarian needs, from highly technical to locally developed, frugal solutions.
Research posters and demonstrations
With the help of expert panellists, we will examine how innovations in tech and data can deliver on their promise to provide value for people in humanitarian and medical crises, while maintaining an ethical, patient-centred approach.
Alongside all this, we have research posters and innovation demonstrations during the breaks, all of which can be viewed on the livestream as well as on our F1000Research conference pages, where slides and videos of the event will also be made available.
Register now or join online
We are very grateful to F1000Research for hosting the MSF Scientific Days content on their Open Research platform, and to our other sponsors: Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, BMC, SciDev.Net, PLOS Medicine, The Lancet and The Lancet Global Health.
If you cannot attend the events in person, we hope you can join our growing online audience, who are an integral part of the days.
Please join us on the livestream and on twitter, where you can interact with our speakers in real time using the #MSFsci hashtag – and help us make this a true conference without borders.