BE READY PLUS aims to extend and enhance the efforts initiated by BE READY in preparing for pandemic response across Europe. The primary objective is to establish a robust and coordinated European Partnership (EP) for pandemic preparedness, fostering strategic alignment among Member States, Associated Countries, and key stakeholders. This will be achieved through the following key pillars: 1) Paving the way for the future European Partnership: BE READY PLUS will provide the necessary administrative and organizational support to ensure a smooth transition to the EP. This includes drafting operational procedures, governance frameworks, preparing requirements to launch Joint Transnational Calls, and engaging key stakeholders to create a solid research and innovation framework. 2) Paving the way for pandemic preparedness: The Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) established by BE READY will be disseminated and updated to reflect new research needs and gaps. BE READY PLUS will also prepare the ground for ever-warm networks of clinical, study sites across Europe, ensuring rapid response capabilities for future health threats. 3) Maximizing the impact of BE READY PLUS: This pillar ensures comprehensive communication and dissemination activities, leveraging digital platforms while maintaining crucial engagements. It aims to engage a wide range of stakeholders, from scientific communities to policymakers and the public, to foster collaboration and increase awareness about pandemic preparedness. BE READY PLUS builds on the successful foundation of BE READY, expanding the consortium to 31 partners from 21 countries, by the addition of 10 new partners and 5 new countries. We will work in synergy with a broad range of European stakeholders and initiatives. Overall, BE READY PLUS will contribute to a more resilient Europe by preparing a detailed operational framework, fostering strategic coordination, and ensuring readiness for swift response to future health crises.

A highly effective malaria vaccine against Plasmodium falciparum should help prevent half a million deaths from malaria each year. New vaccine technologies and antigen discovery approaches now make accelerated design and development of a highly effective multi-antigen multi-stage subunit vaccine feasible. Leading malariologists, vaccine researchers and product developers will here collaborate in an exciting programme of antigen discovery science linked to rapid clinical development of new vaccine candidates. Our approach tackles the toughest problems in malaria vaccine design: choice of the best antigens, attaining high immunogenicity, avoiding polymorphic antigens and increasing the durability of vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy. We take advantage of several recent advances in vaccinology and adopt some very new technologies: sequencing malaria peptides eluted from the HLA molecules, parasites expressing multiple transgenes, multi-antigen virus-like particles constructed with new bonding technologies, delayed release microcapsules, and liver-targeted immunisation with vaccine vectors. We enhance our chances of success by using a multi-stage multi-antigen approach, by optimising the magnitude and durability of well-characterised immune responses to key antigens, and using stringent infectious challenges and functional assays as established criteria for progression at each stage. The consortium comprises many of the foremost researchers in this field in Europe with leading groups in the USA, Australia and Africa. We link to EDCTP programmes and harmonise our timeline to fit with the recent roadmaps for malaria vaccine development. We include a major pharma partner and several excellent European biotech companies helping enhance Europe’s leading position in the commercial development of vaccines. This ambitious and exciting programme should have a high chance of success in tackling the major global health problem posed by malaria.