This strategic institutional partnership converges the research capacity and expertise at the Univer-sity of Toronto and Ghent University to explore and test interdisciplinary responses to global chal-lenges. This partnership builds on the legitimacy that all partners evidenced by their research excel-lence and technical cooperation with the public and private sectors, and international organizations,
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including through three World Health Organization Collaborating Centres. This partnership lever-ages the complementary research strengths in the two academic communities to deliver a high-qual-ity program of research and offer sustained and high-impact scientific and real-world outcomes. This interdisciplinary partnership conceptualizes its work in three thematic areas that align with the University of Toronto’s Strategic Research Plan 2018-2023 and the Ghent University’s Research Policy Plan 2017-2021: health equity & impact, twenty-first century citizenship, and sustainable systems. The kick-off research workshop discussions will center around these focal points. The members of the partnership are currently developing a 2020 action plan, which will be a working document outlining the partnership’s planned collaborative activities in 2020; the first draft will be available in mid-October 2019.