The Dialogue Days 2017 were held November 20 and 21 at Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) and College of Health Sciences, both at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. The symposium was jointly organized by the Researchers for Global Health (R4GH) founding institutions IDI and the Division of Infectious Diseases at University Hospital Zurich. The central objective of the third edition of the symposium was to strengthen the established successful collaboration framework, to extend it to further partner institutions, and to jointly discuss challenges of global health. At its core, the symposium’s aim was to initiate new innovative and fruitful collaborations in research, teaching and clinical care beyond the already established field of infectious diseases.
During the two-day meeting the Swiss delegation, composed 20 physicians, clinical researchers and veterinarians, and further 10 participants of the law department of the University of Zurich had the chance to meet their respective Ugandan counterparts. Around 80 interested physicians and postgraduate students joined the overall 60 delegates for intense and mutually beneficial discussions. Most importantly, foundations for future joint research ventures were laid.
The symposium was very well received. More than 140 participants joined for two days of fruitful discussions.
The Dialogue Days made it once again evident: Challenges of global health call for global solutions. Such challenges can only be properly addressed in an international framework, in which specialists with both a global vision and a sensorium/awareness for local idiosyncrasies closely collaborate. The Dialogue Days provided a forum for the establishment of such new and successful collaborations of both a local and global outreach. The organizers are more than confident that more fruits of these new collaborations will be presented, and that, last but not least, new R4GH members will be welcomed at the next Dialogue Days in Zurich.