The Prime Minister established the UK Vaccine Network in June 2015 to ensure that the UK was at the forefront of the global fight against future disease outbreaks. The UK Vaccine Network has identified a range of human diseases with epidemic potential in low and middle income countries (LMICs) for which the development of Vaccine Products is a priority. The Department of Health and Social Care collaborated with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Medical Research Council, both arms' length bodies of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in running the 2016 competition which aims to support vaccine research to tackle UKVN-identified priority pathogens. This competition was wholly funded by Official Development Assistance and therefore projects must be primarily for the benefit of LMICs. The successful projects are being managed by the National Institute for Health Research. The Department of Health and Social Care made around £12 million available to fund six successful projects.

This funding supports six projects seeking to develop candidate vaccines and vaccine platform technologies at late preclinical and early clinical stages against pathogens with epidemic potential in low and middle income countries. The UK Vaccine Network has identified 12 pathogens as a priority: Chikungunya, Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever, Ebola, Hantavirus, Lassa, Marburg, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Nipah, Plague, Q Fever, Rift Valley Fever and Zika. The aim of this funding is to progress the development of vaccines for these priority diseases, ultimately to support an effective and rapid response during future outbreaks of disease.

Populations of the low and middle income countries where outbreaks of the UK Vaccine Network 12 priority pathogens occur.