Portal welcomes editorial committee
Published: 2023-02-09
We are happy to announce that an editorial committee has been established for the COVID-19 and Pandemic Preparedness Portal. The committee comprises six SciLifeLab researchers, each with expertise in the field of infectious disease. This spring, the committee members will begin working closely with the team behind the Portal to ensure that the Portal continues to be developed in a way that provides maximum benefit to the research community. This will involve collaborating on the development of new and existing content, and increasing engagement with the research community.
The COVID-19 and Pandemic Preparedness Portal was originally launched as the Swedish COVD-19 Data Portal in June 2020. It quickly became a hub for data, tools, services, and other resources related to COVID-19 in Sweden. Over time, the Portal has risen in popularity among the research community, general public, as well as those involved in healthcare, industry, and policy making.
The scope of the Portal was broadened upon joining the SciLifeLab Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness (PLP) Program in 2022. Specifically, the Portal began to focus not only on SARS-CoV-2, but also on other pathogens that pose a significant potential risk to public health (see e.g. our emergent pathogens section or Topics). The Portal has since worked to add content related to about other pathogens, expanded collaborations and partnerships, and increased engagement with the wider infectious diseases community.
Increased engagement with the research community is especially important in ensuring that the Portal remains a valuable resource moving forward, and continues to attract new users and content. The establishment of the editorial committee, which includes researchers with expertise representing the new scope of the Portal, is a crucial part of this effort. The Portal team at SciLifeLab Data Centre will work closely with the editorial committee to ensure that the Portal continues to add value for the research community, whilst maintaining high standards.
The 2023 Editorial committee members are:
- Benjamin Murrell (Karolinska Institute)
- Johan Ankarklev (Stockholm University)
- Johan Bengtsson-Palme (Chalmers)
- Laura Carroll (Umeå University)
- Luisa Hugerth (Uppsala University)
- Mahmoud Naguib (Uppsala University)
Learn more about the editorial committee here.
“Huge welcome to the editorial committee! The Portal team are very excited to start working you all and to develop new and existing content. The editorial committee will play a key role in ensuring that the Portal remains a valuable resource far into the future.”, says Liane Hughes, member of the Portal team.
In future, SciLifeLab hopes to establish similar committees for other programs, such as the Data-driven Life Science Research (DDLS) Program.
At launch in 2020, the Portal (then known as the Swedish COVID-19 Data Portal) became the first national portal of the European network of COVID-19 Data Portals. The response to the Portal has been very positive since launch, and has continued to increase over time (>75,000 users since launch, currently around 200 visits/day). In 2022, the scope of the Portal was expanded to include pandemic preparedness in general, rather than just COVID-19. New content about other pathogens and pandemic preparedness has been added to reflect this change, and will be added regularly going forward. This does not mean that the resources related to COVID-19 will not be maintained and expanded though. On the contrary, those resources are likely to be of vital importance in future pandemic preparedness.