Effective healthcare institutions need effective leaders.The issue of developing leadership qualities among health professionals, however, is often neglected, with many young professions having to learn their leadership skills almost by trial and error as they are handed positions of responsibility. Although incorporating leadership training programmes into the medical curriculum is lately gaining in importance, in practice too few countries are actually providing such training (See, for example: Health Professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world).

The IAP for Research, in partnership with the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), and with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY), is undertaking a three year project that will be framed around the global science community’s contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The advent of the SDGs provides an important opportunity to examine the landscape of global scientific advice and identify approaches that have been successful as well as gaps and opportunities for improvement.