Funding and collaborations

Urgent: With the current global shortfalls in funding for public health surveillance initiatives, we are exploring strategies to ensure both the short-term and long-term sustainability of our WHONET development and support efforts.

As important partners and colleagues, we want to let you know that we are actively exploring new directions and collaborative opportunities in two broad areas. If you are interested in discussing funding support, donations, or other collaborations, please reach out to us at help@whonet.org.

We seek funding support:

• Since 1989, financial suport for WHONET has varied with core funding provided by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care Fleming Fund. Important targeted funds have also been provided by a number of nongovernmental organizations and professional societies, for which we are most grateful.
• We are exploring opportunities for both short-term and longer-term collaborations to support national and international implementation activities and strategic priorities and to ensure the sustainability of long-term WHONET development efforts.
• These are challenging times for obtaining support for international public health surveillance initiatives, and we look forward to exploring with partners opportunities to ensure WHONET long-term sustainability.

We seek to migrate to an open-source platform and collaborative software development:

• WHONET is a free software, but the source code is not publicly available. Migrating to an open-source development strategy will open new opportunities for collaborative development and promote long-term sustainability.
• From our base at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard-teaching hospital, we are exploring the technical and administrative steps needed to facilitate this transition.
• With the release of the source code, we would be very keen to identify groups that may be interested in collaborative software development. If you would have such an interest and expertise, then please contact us!

We are proud and excited of our accomplishments with WHONET software development, dissemination, and support since 1989 and its impact on quality improvement, healthcare delivery, resistance and outbreak containment, capacity-building, and advocacy in over 130 countries. You may view a PowerPoint document summarizing some of our work and accomplishments over the years here.

We look forward to working with the international WHONET community and others to support our collaborative ongoing efforts. Please contact us with any questions or comments! Your feedback and collaboration are important.