The Brighton Collaboration (BC) is an independent global vaccine safety research network for health care professionals. It is a non-profit partnership providing high-quality vaccine safety information.

Background

National and regional immunization coverage and the total numbers of vaccines administered is growing in all countries. Hundreds of millions of children and adolescents have been immunized globally. The coming decade will be one of the most productive in the history of vaccine development. In countries with mature immunization programs, infection rates have fallen by 99%. The global collaborative effort to implement immunization programs is estimated to save 2-3 millions of deaths each year.

With the increase of vaccines around the world, there is an increased responsibility to carefully monitor and investigate their safety. Today, vaccine safety concerns happen in all areas of the globe. When these concerns go unaddressed, whether they are well founded or not, they can have devastating consequences for immunization programs, and thus the lives of millions. If there is a real safety issue with a vaccine given to healthy individuals, identification, communication, as well as a timely and reliable public health response and regulatory action is the collective ethical mandate. For a global immunization program to be successful and sustainable, concerted safety monitoring must develop along side of it.

Global vaccine safety research network

The BC is an independent global vaccine safety research network for health care professionals. It is a non-profit partnership providing high-quality vaccine safety information. It does not advocate for specific vaccines and does not receive funding from specific manufacturers. Its foundation is a Swiss registered public charity with international scope.

Vision and Mission

The Collaboration's vision is to be the world’s leading vaccine safety resource. Its mission is to serve people and institutions concerned with vaccine safety by conducting and promoting high-quality research, with the results disseminated in a timely and effective manner.

Areas of activity

The Collaboration focuses on 5 areas:

1. Research standards

The BC develops and implements internationally accepted standards for vaccine safety research to give added value to studies.

2. Collaborative studies

The BC conducts studies to evaluate standards, guidelines and protocols and to assess background rates and risks of potential adverse events.

3. Linking databases

The BC works with partners to make international linkage of vaccine safety data of over 100 million people a reality.

4. Building capacity

The BC investigates the status of local vaccine safety research and strive to build international capacity to meet local needs.

5. Communicating findings

The BC creates and carries out communication strategies to bring clarity into the discussion about the relative safety of vaccines.