In December 2024, WHO Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Threat Management, Maria Van Kerkhove, noted that “No one wants to talk about COVID-19 … Everyone is acting as though this pandemic didn’t really happen.”
Yet, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, better preparedness for the next outbreak was a dominant driver of academic publications and political statements. Topics included: how vaccines can be produced even faster; why getting the world vaccinated is a critical test of our time; why more effective international coordination mechanisms are necessary for pandemic preparedness; and why peaceful cooperation rather than trading accusations is key to handling pandemics, among others.
In 2020, the European Commission drafted a research funding call to investigate “The challenges of research ethics and integrity in response to crisis: the coronavirus pandemic and beyond”. The main aim of the call was to improve preparedness for the next major crisis, in particular the next pandemic.
Five years later, the consortium, which won the bid, launched “The PREPARED Code – A Global Code of Conduct for Research during Pandemics” at the UNESCO on 3rd June 2025.
The code draws upon the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to inform research ethics and integrity, offering clear and jargon-free guidance across three pages, structured around the values of fairness, respect, care and honesty.
A Nature Medicine editorial welcomed the new code as “a much-needed framework to ensure that research during pandemics is trustworthy and accessible to all”.
The largest ethics code collection in the world already includes over 2,500 ethics codes and this adds yet more ethics guidance. So what makes the PREPARED Code different? I will outline in four points:
First, it is often unclear how ethics codes have been developed. Typically, they are reflective of the views of their drafters, sometime informed by consultations. The PREPARED Code, and its sister code, the TRUST Code, are different. Every article in these codes is grounded in research findings, or evidence gathered and verified during inclusive consultations. Personal drafter views did not determine the content (and I can say this confidently, as I am the lead drafter of both codes). The PREPARED Code is based on a risk-analysis, undertaken in 9 languages, combined with broad stakeholder consultations. For instance, Article 2 (“Research coordination and cooperation are essential to avoid the unnecessary duplication of studies, which could place unfair burdens on participants and waste time and resources.”) addresses a risk that is based on the extensive evidence that many clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequately powered.
Second, moral values motivate action in ways that rules on their own cannot. That is why each article in the PREPARED Code is linked to fairness, respect, care, or honesty. Every research ethics and integrity risk identified in the literature could be linked to at least one of these core moral values. For instance, not answering publishers’ research ethics questions during rushed submissions (Article 26) relates to honesty. Overlooking the heightened risks researchers may face from public hostility (Article 21) relates to care. By making links to important moral values explicit, the guidance is easier to understand and hopefully, more likely to be followed.
Third, the PREPARED Code combines guidance for research ethics and research integrity in one code. For instance, Article 14 of the Code reads: “Research must not compromise public health responses. In particular, the involvement of clinical staff in research should not affect patient care negatively”. This article is about research ethics, seeking to avoid harm from research. Article 20 of the Code reads: “In the context of uncertainty, researchers should review their study protocols regularly to ensure that new findings are taken into account as they emerge.” This article speaks to the robustness of research and therefore to research integrity. Whilst combining research ethics and integrity in one code is not entirely unprecedented, it is highly unusual. Yet it is important because “the impression that they exist as discrete entities compounds confusion about what it takes to be an ethical researcher”.
Fourth, like the TRUST Code before it, the PREPARED Code is accompanied by its own open access book published by Springer. The book, edited by Dr Kate Chatfield and Dr Michelle Singh, offers a comprehensive guide to code development, as well as practical insights into implementation and training opportunities. It thus supplements the short code, with valuable resources that are relevant to researchers, research ethics committees and research integrity offices. And for those seeking deeper engagement, each of the 27 articles of the PREPARED Code are explained in short, engaging video clips designed to inform and inspire (the full set will be completed by 31 Aug 2025).
As the editors of the PREPARED Code book emphasise: “Ultimately, we hope that this code is never needed – that the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic will not be repeated – but science warns us otherwise.” Should pandemic research become necessary again, the PREPARED Code will be an essential tool for research ethics and integrity thanks to “its strong ethical grounding, transparent and inclusive development process, and easy accessibility”.
Courtesy of: https://impactethics.ca/2025/06/30/the-prepared-code-a-reminder-not-to-forget-the-covid-19-pandemic/
