April 29, 2020

update on the Rapid Assistance in Modelling the Pandemic (RAMP) initiative

Good scientific advice is essential to good decisions being made by politicians.  The UK is a world leader in pandemic modelling and in wider scientific modelling. The independent Rapid Assistance in Modelling the Pandemic (RAMP) initiative was convened by the Royal Society with the aim of mobilising the wider modelling community to assist the work of the pandemic modelling community in its response to key questions for COVID-19 policymaking. A month after launching a call for volunteers what has RAMP achieved?

Speakers included:

Prof Peter Bruce, Vice-President of the Royal Society

Prof Mike Cates, Chair of RAMP steering committee and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge

Prof Julia Gog, Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge and member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M)

Prof Mark Birkin, Professor of Spatial Analysis and Policy in the School of Geography, University of Leeds and programme Director for Urban Analytics at The Alan Turing Institute